PROFITS before tax at consumer goods group Unilever Ireland plunged from €71 million to almost €5m last year.

London: Unilever, the maker of Dove soap, agreed to buy Sara Lee’s personal-care and European detergent unit for €1.28 billion, gaining Sanex shower gel in its biggest purchase in nine years.

Consumer goods giant Unilever today unveiled a deal worth €1.2bn to add the bath products Sanex and Radox to its portfolio of brands.

US stocks extended their rally today after the Federal Reserve’s latest take on the economy raised hopes that the central bank’s string of interest rate hikes are coming to an end.

PAYING lip service, at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, to the jobs crisis in the manufacturing industry in Kerry was not enough, a trade union official warned yesterday.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese has left Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Britain’s Queen trailing in her wake after being named the 21st most powerful woman in the world.

AMID claims that Kerry is becoming an industrial wasteland, state agencies were called on yesterday to help existing industries, which are under pressure, to become more competitive.

REDUNDANCIES at the Sara Lee factory, in Killarney due to close next month with the loss of 92 jobs, are to start this week.

MANUFACTURING firms are under renewed attack from low-cost countries forcing factory closures around the country, it was claimed yesterday.

TOURISM Minister John O’Donoghue was coming under pressure yesterday to act on the jobs crisis in his Kerry South constituency.

90 jobs are to go at a clothes manufacturer in Killarney.

More than 250 jobs were today under serious threat in a double blow to Northern Ireland’s beleaguered textiles industry.

Kerry Group and IAWS, two Irish quoted food companies, have placed bids for Irish food group Hibernia, before the deadline for offers set by receiver KPMG expired last week.

UNCERTAINTY was hanging over about 2,000 jobs yesterday after a food manufacturer that produces Sara Lee cakes and Mr Brains faggots went into administration.

Uncertainty was hanging over the fate of Hibernia Foods Holdings today after the food manufacturer went into administration.

HIBERNIA FOODS, which manufactures branded desserts, has been placed into receivership by one of its largest creditors.

BESIEGED Green party TD Ciarán Cuffe yesterday stepped down from his position as party environment spokesperson and handed over his position on the Oireachtas Environment Committee to party leader Trevor Sargent.

BLACK SAM BELLAMY, last of nine at Longchamp previously and absolutely friendless in the market, streaked away with the Group One Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh yesterday.

Investors collected profits today, sending Wall Street moderately lower. A surge in unemployment claims and disappointing earnings reports also fed worries that the economy was not keeping pace with the market’s recent gains.

Hopes for an end to a US West Coast ports standoff pleased investors today, prompting them to buy stocks and give the market its first advance in five sessions.

PEOPLE are starving to death in the coffee-growing mountains of Paradise.

Oxfam has launched an international campaign to demand higher prices to be paid to coffee farmers in the developing world.

The Sara Lee textile plant in Killarney, Co Kerry, is expected to announce plans to halve its workforce later today.

Dermot Weld's colt Pakhoes will take on the top British two-year-olds in the Coventry Stakes next month after making it third time lucky at the Curragh.

The exodus of blue-chip clients from Arthur Andersen is continuing, sparking increased concern that the end might be near for the US auditing giant.

Another textile firm has announced plans to lay off workers as the gloomy predictions for the Irish economy continue to materialise.

A Lurgan textile factory due to close next month with the loss of 140 jobs could have survived if it had not been for Marks and Spencer, it was claimed today.