The north west is set to lose 60 jobs after a major clothing manufacturer announced the closure of its factory in Donegal town today.
Magee has said the manufacturing jobs will go by June 2007 because the company is ending clothing production there.
Magee operates through three companies - Magee Clothing, Magee Weaving and Magee Shops. The decision will not affect the Magee weaving operation, which employs 60 people at the factory, or the Magee shops.
The company will continue to employ around 130 people in Donegal town after the redundancies, including 30 people in its local retail outlet.
Chairman Lynn Temple said the decision was due to the high cost of manufacturing clothing in Ireland. The company will continue to base its administration, design and marketing in Donegal town, where it was founded in 1866.
Fine Gael Donegal South West TD Dinny McGinley has said he is dismayed by the jobs losses
He called it "another blow to the unemployment situation in Donegal" and extended his sympathy to the staff and their families.
Mr McGinley stated that the closure was due almost entirely to the "unsustainable cost base which has arisen in Ireland under the current Government".
"These latest job losses demonstrate that Donegal is still in the midst of an unemployment crisis. And while the rest of Ireland is enjoying unprecedented prosperity,the crisis in Donegal is getting worse," he said. "The unemployment situation is in freefall and we need radical action."
Mr McGinley suggested that Donegal should be considered as a special tax incentive region similar to the Upper Shannon Basin."
Although he welcomed the 130 jobs that Magee is retaining, he pointed out that the 60 job losses come in the wake of 600 job losses at Hospira, and, more recently, the news that only 37 civil servants have opted to transfer to Donegal under decentralisation.
Mr Temple said he deeply regretted the redundancies but Magee did not have a single major competitor that was still producing garments on a large scale in Ireland or the United Kingdom.
"The skill and experience of our staff has been a big part of Magee's success and it has always been our ethos to create employment at home in Donegal. However the economics of the marketplace means that this is no longer possible in clothing manufacturing."
The decision was announced to the Magee workforce earlier today. Mr Temple said talks with the staff involved would begin on Monday.