John Foley is not afraid to say it. His first 14 months as chief executive of Waterford Crystal have been a "baptism of fire".

When he took over from Mr Redmond O'Donoghue in September last year, the company had never been in better shape. Five years of spectacular growth, for which Mr Foley earned much of the credit as sales and marketing director, had seen to that.

Then, a triple whammy. The foot-and-mouth crisis, the downturn in the US economy and the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington combined to create what Mr O'Donoghue, now chief of the Waterford Wedgwood group, says is the worst business environment he has experienced.

The crystal division, in common with the rest of the group, has acted quickly to deal with the problems. It closed its Stuart Crystal factory in Britain last month while 100 jobs are to go at its Waterford city and Dungarvan plants, where staff also agreed to three week-long shutdowns.

Telling the 230 staff at Stuart Crystal, in the west midlands, that their jobs were gone was "the most difficult hour of my life", says Mr Foley. He felt he had to do it personally, particularly as he had run a factory for a period.

"It's not the macho thing to say but I found it extremely difficult to do. That's not to say, however, that I would ever shirk my responsibility. The investment required to keep it open would have been unsustainable and it was absolutely the right decision. And taking tough decisions early is far better than taking them later."

Despite the recent difficulties, he is resolutely upbeat about the company's future.

Waterford Crystal's sales and profits have doubled in size in the past five years and it is his job, he says, to ensure it repeats that performance in the half decade ahead. That's the target of the group as a whole and the crystal division must keep pace. It will do so through "core business growth, acquisitions and internal efficiencies".

In the short term, a $1 million (€1.1 million) advertising campaign has been launched for the Christmas market in the US. There is a longer-term goal involved, too. "Christmas has been an important part of our business but weddings have been a bigger part," he says, so there is a "huge" seasonal opportunity to be exploited.

Continued launches of new products, which account for more than 20 per cent of business each year, can be expected. New line extensions to add to existing non-crystal products like china, jewellery, linen and cutlery, currently responsible for $100 million of business, are also planned.

A major objective for next year will be to ensure that the Waterford factory continues to be one of the top five fee-paying tourist attractions in the State. Vigorous promotion of the facility has ensured that visitor numbers, which rose from 100,000 in the mid-1990s to 355,000 last year, will be down just 2 per cent in 2001, compared to an expected 10 per cent drop in tourism nationally.

"I want to be and I need to be optimistic for next year. If there is a downturn in tourism to this country next year, what we've got to do as a company is to make sure we offer customers the products and the prices to make sure that, if there are fewer people, they buy more."

Sales to tourists, most of them from North America, account for 60 per cent of the £45 million (€57.2 million) of Waterford crystal sold in the Republic each year. While the economic climate may have taken a sharp turn for the worse, the company is in a strong position to deal with it. Last year was Waterford Wedgwood's eighth successive year of record results, with crystal sales of £437.7 million, up 10 per cent on the previous year, a significant contributor.

Things were markedly different when Mr Foley left Bord na M≤na in 1991 to join Waterford Crystal as marketing manager. The company had just come out of a 14-week strike and was still in a precarious financial position. He remembers one colleague "telling me I was off my head" to leave a State sector job for such an environment.

As a marketing man, however, he was attracted by the brand. "If you have the opportunity to work with certain brands, you grab them. Mind you, there were times in the first six months when I wondered 'what have I done?'"

In 1995 he became sales and marketing manager and set about enhancing the brand's image and broadening its appeal. A particularly successful initiative was the collaboration that created the John Rocha at Waterford Crystal range of products.

He approached the fashion designer because he felt the age profile of people buying Waterford products was "older than was healthy" for the business.

"It struck me that if we were to casualise the image of the product, a fashion association would be ideal."

Sales of Rocha-designed crystal ware have exceeded £10 million to date and the success of the venture led to Mr Foley being named marketer of the year by Marketing magazine in 1999.

As chief executive, his marketing expertise is still required but he does not want to be seen as a "marketer in a chief executive's role". It is now his job to ensure "that we are cost-competitive on an ongoing basis. . . I am absolutely focused on that every single day of my life".

Such talk has been backed by action. Suppliers to the company received a letter last month that gave them five days to agree to a retrospective price cut of 10 per cent or have it imposed. He "wasn't pleased", he admits, when he heard that the letter's contents were to be revealed by The Irish Times but it goes with the company's status that it must do its business "in the spotlight".

He points out that suppliers were invited to contact the company to discuss the issue and says relationships have not been damaged.

Relations with the 1,400 staff in Waterford and Dungarvan are also very much better than when he joined the company. Negotiations on the 100 job cuts sought, to be achieved by voluntary means and non-renewal of contracts, are continuing and he is not prepared to discuss the details.

The factory shutdowns totalling three weeks have taken care of the immediate need to bring supply into line with demand but Mr Foley will not say whether further measures will be necessary to keep output in check.

"We will have to look at 2002 on its own merits," he says.

Baptism of fire or not, he is enjoying the challenge of the job and looking forward to the future. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of the launch of the company's Lismore brand, providing a major opportunity to promote the top-selling crystal pattern.

He is less enthusiastic about the approach of another 50th birthday - his own. He reaches that milestone in February and frankly admits: "I hate it. I hate the idea of it."

He prefers to talk business and quickly brings the conversation back to the job. "I live this place. I live it and eat it and sleep it. It's my life," he says.

Being chief executive is "not a burden, but it's a huge responsibility. You have to get things right. A lot of people are depending on you so you have to do the very, very best you can."