A Dublin computer plant, which laid off 125 staff this week, suffered a dramatic turnabout in its fortunes in the past fortnight. Workers at Applied Magnetics in Coolock spoke yesterday of their "devastation" at being let go unexpectedly on Tuesday, only a fortnight after some were doing overtime because the plant was so busy.

Staff were informed of the development at a general meeting of the plant's 280 employees, at which the names of those to be let go were read out. Although workers laid off have been paid up to January 5th, they were told at the meeting they could go home as there was no more work for them.

Those let go expressed pessimism about their chances of getting new jobs of a similar quality elsewhere in the electronics industry. The American-owned plant was regarded as a good payer and its staff, most of them SIPTU members, were in "permanent" rather than short-term contract employment.

The company, which has been in Ireland since 1980, has had fluctuating fortunes in the past, with laid-off staff being re-employed as new contracts came on stream.

But on this occasion the future of the plant, which supplies disk head assemblies to the international disk-drive industry, is itself in doubt. Discussions on the long-term future of the plant are expected to conclude with final decisions before January 12th, the company said this week.

However, staff said the company, which made its selection on a length-of-service basis, handled the situation well. Company management declined to comment on the situation yesterday.