Textile redundancy deal agreed

Desmonds makes clothes for Marks and Spencer

Nearly 300 workers at two textile factories in County Londonderry are to lose their jobs days before Christmas, it has been announced.

The Desmonds' plants at Newbuildings and Springtown will close on 19 December.

In a statement issued on Friday, the company said it had agreed a redundancy package with the trade unions.

It added that it was setting up a retraining fund to help the 293 workers find other jobs.

News of the job losses came on Wednesday, when the company blamed "significant competitive pressures" for its decision to close its factory outside Londonderry and a cutting room at Springtown, in the city centre.

"Pressures on margins, coupled with increased insurance, energy and social costs combine to pose immense challenges to Northern Ireland manufacturing," a spokesperson for Desmonds said.

The company added that the inevitable result of all those pressures was that products "cease to be viable when made in Northern Ireland and must be produced overseas".

Foreign competition

Meanwhile, a Stormont minister has defended the contribution of the British Government to manufacturing in Northern Ireland, following the decision by Desmonds to close its remaining factories in the province.

Speaking on Wednesday, Enterprise Minister Ian Pearson said the government was doing all it could for manufacturing in the province.

However, union officials said the government was "sitting back watching their workers being put out of work".

Last year, Desmonds employed nearly 2,000 people at eight factories, mostly situated in the north west of Northern Ireland.

Since then, subsequent reviews have led to factories closing down.

Desmonds supplies Marks and Spencer and in the past has blamed cost pressures behind a decision to have many of its clothes made overseas.

In July, Desmonds' factory in Irvinestown, County Fermanagh, closed with the loss of 115 jobs.

That closure followed the shutting down of the firm's plants in Omagh, County Tyrone, and Swatragh, County Londonderry, in June.

Desmonds blamed a total of 500 jobs losses on foreign competition with work transferred to the company's overseas operations.