Bakery closure to cost 90-plus jobs

Around 90 jobs are to be lost with the closure of Keating’s bakery in Kanturk Co Cork, it emerged tonight.

Irish Pride will shut down its operations at HM Keating with the loss of 70 full-time posts and more than 20 part-time jobs.

The company said the Kanturk plant was no longer viable.

The bakery had suffered jobs blows in the past, but on a much smaller scale, and had attempted to corner a different segment of the market by making speciality products and concentrating on local buyers.

The redundancies bring to almost 600 the number of jobs lost around the country in the first few weeks of 2006.

The most severe losses came in Co Longford after a fire gutted the C&D Foods plant leaving almost 300 employees without work.

Earlier this week bicycle component manufacturer SRAM Ireland revealed 53 jobs would be lost with the closure of its Carrick-on-Suir plant in Tipperary.

SRAM Ireland said increased competition from the Far East had forced the move and revealed it would wind down operations over the next nine months.

A spokesman added that 11 staff involved in European management and back office activities will be kept on at a new location in the region.

Elsewhere, Unilever Ireland cut 84 posts, mostly van drivers and delivery jobs. The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods firm, said the cuts came following a decision to transfer distribution from its in-house van fleet to independent operators. And 70 jobs are to be lost at the Glen Dimplex manufacturing firm in Tralee due to competition from low-cost countries.