Double NI jobs blow

Seventy jobs are under threat at a County Armagh textiles factory.

The TJW factory in Portadown will close at the end of March unless orders can be found urgently.

The factory makes almost 3,000 items of women's clothing each week for London-based conglomerate Thomas Pink, which is moving production to Romania.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that more than 70 jobs are to go in Londonderry and Coleraine following the collapse of the What Everyone Wants retail chain.

The Scottish-based firm went into administration last month and attempts to find a buyer failed.

Jobs likely to be lost at TJW will be mostly stitchers and it is the latest in a series of payoffs to hit the textile trade in the Portadown area.

" If they had given us six to eight months notice instead of weeks we should have been able to do something about it "
Roberta O'Connor
TJW manager

"We were told out of the blue that Thomas Pink were taking all their orders from us with a March deadline," said TJW factory manager Roberta O'Connor.

"It is very, very doubtful but we are pulling out all the stops trying to get other work."

TJW is a family-run firm which has been in business for eight years.

Ms O'Connor added: "They knew they were going off shore, if they had given us six to eight months notice instead of weeks we should have been able to do something about it.

"We give them a good product, never let them down, but at the end of the day it all comes down to money," she added.

Michelle Gillespie works in the factory alongside two of her sisters.

"It's terrible. I don't know where to go to look for work.

"It's going to have to be a different kind of work to stitching," she said.

Factory worker John Woolsey said they thought the smaller companies had a better chance of survival.

"It just feels like the government and politicians are just letting the whole industry go down the drain and they don't seem to care," he said.

Meanwhile, a County Tyrone company has secured a £400,000 contract in the Middle East.

Coalisland firm Viper International, which makes screening and recycling machinery, won the contract which involves the construction of a gas pipeline in the Arabian Gulf region.

The company's machinery is used to screen and recycle sand and other materials.

'Huge potential'

The company currently employs 65 people in the design and manufacture of machinery for the quarrying, recycling and land reclamation industries worldwide.

Managing Director Harry McCourt said there was huge potential in the Middle East market.

"We focus on European and the north American market and Invest NI organised a trade mission there towards the latter part of last year," he said.

"We sent our person on the trade mission and we discovered that there is a very good market out there for our equipment.

"The beauty of this deal is that it is not a one off deal. The oil prices are at an all time high therefore the infrastructure in that part of the world needs to be upgraded, especially in Qatar.

"We see our equipment being used on major projects in that area in gas and oil plants."