The establishment of major electronics companies in west Dublin and Limerick would provide the packaging company, ILP, with an opportunity to turn around the fortunes of its Leixlip plant, the group's chairman said yesterday.
Speaking at the company's annual general meeting, Mr John Bourke said that while the company was "most disappointed" with last year's figures, all plants bar the "under-utilised" Leixlip one were performing well. These include businesses in Limerick and Northern Ireland, and joint ventures in Galway and Penang, Malaysia.
ILP made pre-tax losses of £668,000 in 1997, compared to a profit of £1,077,000 in 1996. Mr Bourke said that overhead levels were now close "to the bottom end of operational viability" in the 18-month-old Leixlip plant, which currently comprises about one third of the company's turnover, but would amount to half at full capacity.
"If the long awaited turnover for which it was built does not shortly materialise, more imaginative solutions may have to be found," he said.
These could include selling the facility or leasing part of it. "We hope it will come right soon, but it needs more turnover," he said. But he added that major customers in the east of the country expected that turnover to materialise.
"We have planned to have break even well before the end of the year but to a certain extent we are in the hands of our customers," he said The completion of major electronics company projects such as IBM and Xerox at Blanchardstown and Dell in Limerick could provide fresh custom. "We are here ready and willing to assist them . . . A lot of them are coming on stream," he said. Overall turnover was 24 per cent higher so far this year than in 1997, and the release of Microsoft's Windows 98 "should boost things".
