Jobs to go at clothing firm

Fruit of the Loom has announced that all its Buncrana operations are being transferred to its Ballymacarry site in County Donegal, with a loss of 65 jobs.

The company's senior vice president Joe Mullan said Fruit of the Loom faced a compelling need to reduce costs in order to secure long-term competitiveness.

He said focusing on a single site would help the company maintain a viable textile operation in Ireland.

The redundancies will take effect over the next 12 months.

Over recent years our manufacturing base has undergone significant change

Joe Mullan, Fruit of the Loom

Mr Mullan said: "Over recent years our manufacturing base has undergone significant change."

He added: "We believe that our strategy of coupling well-invested textile processing in the north west of Ireland with cost-effective garment assembly in Morocco will position us to to successfully meet the challenges facing our business.

"As the market and retail sector continues to change, the US management team has recognised the potential growth opportunities offered by Fruit of the Loom and this belief is endorsed through today's announcement."

The company said the site at the Shore Road in Buncrana was old and had "many constraints to future development".

Transfer

Operations there will begin to transfer early next year.

Last year, Fruit of the Loom announced the closure of its sewing operation in Londonderry with the loss of 150 jobs.

The firm said the reasons for the shutdown included the cost pressures on Ireland as a base coupled with substantial overproduction of certain garments for coming seasons.

At the end of September last year, Fruit of the Loom announced 300 jobs were being lost at its plant in Donegal, just across the border from Derry.

Fruit of the Loom has another factory at Campsie in Derry employing 200 people.

More than 4,000 jobs have been lost in the textiles industry in Northern Ireland over the last three years.