Desmond & Sons to Close Factory

Desmond & Sons announced on Wednesday that it was closing its factory at Newbuildings, near Londonderry where 277 jobs will be lost. A cutting room at Springtown, Derry, where 16 people are employed, will also shut down. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the company blamed "significant competitive pressures" for its decision. "Pressures on margins, coupled with increased insurance, energy and social costs combine to pose immense challenges to Northern Ireland manufacturing," the company said.

"Despite our efforts to maintain as much employment locally as possible, the inevitable result of all these pressures is that products cease to be viable when made in Northern Ireland and must be produced overseas."Desmonds supplies Marks and Spencer and in the past has blamed cost pressures behind a decision to have many of its clothes made overseas.

In July, Desmonds' factory in Irvinestown, County Fermanagh, closed with the loss of 115 jobs. That closure followed the shutting down of the firm's plants in Omagh, County Tyrone, and Swatragh, County Londonderry, in June. Desmonds blamed a total of 500 jobs losses on foreign competition with work transferred to the company's overseas operations. Earlier this year, the firm announced that more than 300 jobs were to go at two other plants.