Richardsons staff protest over severance terms

On the day that Richardsons closed down, around half the 206 workers who lost their jobs at the plant travelled down to Dublin to protest over severance terms.

Among the employees grievances are the lack of a 90-day consultation period – the announcement of the closure was made two weeks ago – and fears that pension demands will not be met. The protests were held outside Tánaiste Mary Harney's Kildare Street offices this afternoon.

Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union spokesperson Maurice Cunningham said: "The concern now has to move to what their entitlements are - that is the main purpose of today. We have agreements and we know what a redundancy pay should be. At this stage the company doesn't seem to be prepared to honour it and doesn't seem to want to sit down and talk openly and honestly with trade unions."

The closure was revealed on October 15 after parent company Irish Fertilizer Industries (IFI) announced that it was calling in the liquidators.

In all 620 jobs face the axe at three sites - Arklow, Cork and Belfast - after the company posted losses of €30m in the past year.

The Irish government, through the nationalised company NET, was the major shareholder in IFI holding 51% of shares.

At the time of the announcement, Tánaiste, and Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, Mary Harney, said: "We could only propose support for the company if there was a viability plan – and no viability plan was forthcoming.

"I couldn't justify, nor were the other shareholders willing to countenance, putting more money into the company without a viability plan. Notwithstanding the huge efforts made by the management, made by the board and the workers, it just wasn't possible to come forward with the viability plan and so it wasn't justifiable for us to put more public money into the company at this time."

The Irish government and ICI – who owned the remaining 49% of the company – have provided €34 million in investment in the past two years, and, since inception in 1961, the value of the Exchequer support for NET and IFI has amounted to nearly €750 million in present-day terms.

Ms Harney has said that the company operated in a "very difficult trading environment in which it has struggled to provide a return on this investment". That position, she said, had deteriorated and became critical in recent months as the losses mounted.

The Richardsons plant, at the Port of Belfast, processed ammonia from Cork and other imported raw materials such as phosphoric acid and potash to produce NPK compound fertilizers.

(GMcG)