IRELAND’S BOOK industry has been dealt a blow with the announcement that a Scottish distribution company will shut down its Irish operation in the autumn.

CMD BookSource, which distributes books for more than 20 Irish publishers, will cease trading here on September 30th.

Its Glasgow-based parent BookSource has said its Irish venture is “no longer sustainable” because of the very difficult trading conditions.

Three employees in its Dublin warehouse will lose their jobs as a result of the closure.

Publishing Ireland, (which represents more than 90 publishers) has described the closure as a blow to the industry, saying that CMD has been been a “hugely significant” player in the Irish book trade.

Jean Harrington, president of Publishing Ireland, said yesterday: “The indigenous book sector in Ireland has suffered greatly in the current economic situation and the closure of one distributor places an additional stress on the indigenous publishers who seek to produce and promote Irish books, by Irish writers for the Irish public.”

CMD said it was committed to ensuring that its client publishers, which include Mercier Press, Liberties Press and The Stinging Fly, could continue trading “with the least possible disruption”.

Mercier’s managing director Clodagh Feehan confirmed that it had agreed a distribution arrangement with Argosy Books.

In April 2009, BookSource, which is 90 per cent owned by Publishing Scotland, took over the Irish distributor CMD and began trading here as CMD BookSource.

It has not yet filed any accounts with the Companies Office.

The closure will have no impact on its parent operation in Scotland as CMD BookSource was set up as a separate company.

“Fortunately the UK is not experiencing the same severe downturn as Ireland,” BookSource said in a statement.