The Tánaiste and the Chief Executive of the IDA have both assured workers at the Avon Jewellery plant in Portarlington that attracting a foreign industry into the area is now their number one priority.
Mary Harney met with AVON Arlington local management and the company's trade union officials when she visited the plant this afternoon. She told workers later that urgent priority attention will be given to their needs and that the Government was determined that new industry would be attracted to the county.
The Tánaiste was joined on the visit by Sean Dorgan, the IDA's chief executive, and later met with a new task force set up to examine and respond to the immediate training and employment needs of the 300 workers who will lose their permanent jobs at the end of April.
Ms. Harney has rejected claims that an earlier meeting with AVON management in the United States could have saved some of the Laois jobs. It is the responsibility of the task force to come up with a positive outcome now, she says.
