Over 300 employees at the north Westmeath Iralco plant are to retain their jobs, it emerged this week, as the sale of the car parts manufacturer company was completed.
The business and its assets have been bought by Athenry-based company C&F Tooling Ltd, securing the jobs of almost three quarters of its 420 employees.
Iralco workers voted in August to accept the takeover, which included a number of redundancies. The proposals put forward by C&F Tooling Ltd were accepted by over 90 per cent of the employees.
Iralco manufactures components for some of the largest car companies in Europe, including Ford, Volvo, Volkswagen, Audi, and Bentley. The Collinstown plant went into liquidation in April after the company’s losses became unsustainable due to a highly competitive global market. However a number of the major car manufacturers opted to maintain their contracts with the firm, leading to its re-opening as a going concern with liquidators John McStay and Tom Rogers of insolvency firm McStay Luby appointed to seek a buyer.
Iralco is worth an estimated €8 million per annum to the local economy, and has manufactured automotive parts since 1964, employing people from the north Westmeath area as well as the surrounding counties of Longford, Meath, and Cavan.
