20 jobs have been lost at Oakley, Inc., a global leader in the manufacture of high quality eyewear, at their prescription eyewear facility at the Mullingar Business Park in Clonmore.
The company came to Mullingar in 2002 with the support of IDA Ireland and they occupied a 10,000 sq. ft building in the industrial estate with promises of over 100 jobs made by the company and then Tánaiste Mary Harney.
However, they have downsized in the past number of years and there were 30 employed at the facility in Zone C of the park until Friday last. Staff held a farewell get-together in a Mount Street hostelry where the mood was mixed.
The 20 jobs lost are all in the manufacturing and repair side of the company. A further 10 staff will be retained in Mullingar in the areas of customer services, administration and accounts.
It is understood Oakley are centralising their manufacturing and production operation to America. A number of employees spoke to Topic ‘off the record’ of their shock at the decision, but the company declined to comment.
However, the job losses were confirmed to Topic earlier this week.
BUZZ
When they opened in Mullingar in 2002, Oakley said it was their strategy to localise manufacturing of prescription eyewear products destined for European markets. The local facility buzzed with a large amount of employees for over a decade and it was rated locally as a very good place to work, with morale high and employees a tight-knit bunch.
Founded in California in 1975, Oakley, Inc. is most famous as a manufacturer of high quality, premium sports performance equipment and lifestyle pieces, predominently premium sunglasses, sports visors, optical frames and ski/snowboard goggles. In recent years they moved into watches, performance clothes, backpacks, footwear and other accessories.
Their famous ‘O’ logo was synonymous on sports kit of some of the world’s best known professional sportspeople in all manner of sporting codes. With a rise in popularity of their products, hopes were high they would employing more in Mullingar, especially as the Mullingar facility specialised in prescription lenses. However, the prescription detailed by the American company was a very different one.
IDA PRESSURE
Deputy Willie Penrose (Lab) wants the IDA to move fast to secure jobs for Mullingar as Oakley would be viewed internationally as a big name which, in turn, attracts other big names or clusters of business of a similar nature.
He said he has every empathy with the workers who have lost their jobs and said it was “regrettable in every context” that Oakley are moving manufacturing back to the US at a human cost. He wants the IDA to make every effort to re-employ the staff by bringing new business to Mullingar.
“I spoke to them only a few weeks ago about how with property prices going through the roof in cities, the time was right to move to towns like Mullingar. There are huge opportunities for businesses with the space available here. However, part of the problem is that we have no clusters of particular types of industry in Mullingar; one big breakthrough with a big name would attract others and I am calling on the IDA to advance talks to bring business to Mullingar,” he stated.
Deputy Robert Troy (FF) said he is disappointed with the news and his thoughts are with the workers affected.
He said the Government “needs to start investing and promoting provincial towns such as Mullingar. I have highlighted the need for the IDA to bring in potential investors and will continue to do so.”
MIDAS TOUCH
Meanwhile, in more positive news on the jobs front, Midas Technologies will today (Wednesday) announce a new partnership with a Swedish IT consulting company Cybercom which will ultimately lead to the creation of many jobs in the IT sector at home and abroad.
The full details were not available as we went to press. However representatives from the Swedish company will formally announce it in Mullingar. Midas offers companies a range of IT services whilst Cybercom is an IT consulting company that assists companies find services. The connection of the two will yield jobs in the programming and engineering fields. For more on this, see www.topic.ie this week.
