Final day for workers as Cork Ford plant ceases production after seventy years with the loss of 800 jobs.
In 1982, it was hoped that the launch of the Ford Sierra would save the factory with an investment of ten million pounds. However, it was not to be.
It's a week now since the last Ford Sierra car rolled off the assembly line.
Ford admitted that the size and location of the Cork plant left the factory uneconomically viable. In January 1984, it was announced that the plant would close with the loss of eight hundred jobs.
This afternoon saw the end of Ford's first plant outside America after nearly seventy years, a huge chunk of Cork's economic foundations lost.
The closure resulted in a twenty five million pound payoff deal, averaging around forty thousand pounds each. However, many of the workers would rather have their jobs. Shop stewards were critical of the company and the Minister for Industry and Energy John Bruton, who they claim had promised new jobs and training but did nothing.
There was a further economic hit for Cork with the loss of 150 jobs at the Verlome Dockyard.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 13 July 1984. The report is Michael Ryan.
