(Mayo): TJT Manufacturing Limited, Kiltimagh, County Mayo, has announced it is closing with the loss of 98 jobs. I spoke with the director of the company, Mr. Tony Meehan, who informed me that the withdrawal of a UK contract is the main and immediate reason for the closure. This is a devastating blow to an area already punch drunk from job losses. TJT Manufacturing Limited was by far the biggest employer in Kiltimagh. The town lost its spinning and yarn factory 12 years ago: it was a crushing blow to the local economy and local morale when Irish Spinners Limited, which once employed 150 workers, finally closed. Kiltimagh lost its railway line. The track still exists and the station has been tastefully converted into a museum and park with the ever lingering expectation that it might one day re-open. The town was left out of the national plan when the new national roads category was being introduced, resulting in it being on neither a national primary nor national secondary route.
Yet the town refused to die. It galvanised and mobilised its resources. It got an unprecedented response by way of weekly contributions from the community. It built up its own development fund, set up IRD Limited and has transformed the town which now looks much better. It is a bilingual town. New houses have been built and its annual St. Patrick's Day celebration continues for one week with bands and visitors from Germany, the United Kingdom and the US. It has generated small cluster industries, each providing weekly wage packets. However, to lose 98 jobs in one fell swoop is a huge body blow to an already fragile economy. The morale of the region is already reeling from a spate of factory closures.
No region in the country has seen less of the so-called Celtic tiger and such a spate of job losses and factory closures as east Mayo. Two years ago Asahi in Killala closed with the loss of 200 jobs. Farah closed in Ballyhaunis with the loss of 120 jobs. Recently, All Fresh closed in Charlestown with the loss of 100 jobs. Betatherm Limited closed in Ballinrobe with the loss of 30 jobs. It now looks as if the 350 jobs at Irish Country Meats or Glan Bia in Ballyhaunis and Ballaghaderreen could be under threat as a result of the threatened takeover.
This region has some of the finest post-primary schools in the country – the results speak for themselves. There is a huge participation rate in third level education. However, for some reason there is a jobs blight in the region which must be addressed as a matter of urgency. While people might get excited about a new factory in Claremorris or Coca Cola Limited in Ballina, the real story is that for the odd new industry which is opened, three others close; for every job created three other jobs are lost and the decline and imbalance continues. Of the 102 job projects announced in 1998, only 12 came to the western region. The last two disastrous years in farming, with stock dying of starvation and cattle prices returning to those of the early 1980s, means that the next few years will see the small farming community driven in large numbers from the land by economic necessity and with no available jobs in their immediate locality.
I appeal to the Government to tilt the balance towards the west and the Border regions and to provide incentives in these areas as the most attractive location for industry, not simply from the point of view of the welfare of the region, but equally in the context of the need for greater regional balance. I appeal to the Government to devolve meaningful powers and adequate resources to the new Western Development Commission. This, coupled with Objective One status, represents the west's last hope.
