The realisation has now dawned in Cork that the Seagate computer-disk manufacturing operation, which was to have provided more than 1,000 jobs at Ringaskiddy, will probably not go ahead.
The IDA announced triumphantly last October that Seagate was to locate at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour, but within a few weeks the company had deferred the project.
Now with the announcement that has devastated employment prospects in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, the feeling in Cork is that there is no chance of the proposed factory going ahead.
The president of the Cork Chamber of Commerce, Mr Conor Doyle, yesterday said he accepted that the project was now in serious jeopardy and that it was unlikely to proceed. He accused Seagate of behaving badly in that it had not informed the Government properly or adequately about its intentions to pull out of Clonmel.
"While we might have been too euphoric before about such announcements, it seems to me that from now on we will have to take a more measured view of such companies coming in and what their real commitment is," Mr Doyle said.
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, has described the announced closure of the Seagate plant in Clonmel with the loss of 1,400 jobs as a terrible loss for the Co Tipperary town.
Mr Hume, who played a pivotal role in persuading Seagate to set up a plant at Springtown, Derry, four years ago, said he understood the concerns generated in Derry by both the Clonmel closure and Seagate's announcement that it had decided to shelve for six months a £150 million expansion of its Derry plant.
"I have just returned from the United States and my understanding is that obviously this terrible loss for the people in Clonmel resulted from the economic crisis in the Far East, but that it would not affect the situation here in Derry," Mr Hume said.