ALMOST 200 jobs have been lost at a medical devices manufacturing plant in Co Offaly.

Management at the healthcare group Covidien, which is the biggest employer in Tullamore, met unions and staff yesterday to confirm the job losses.

A spokeswoman for Covidien said 160 full-time positions would go through an early retirement and voluntary redundancies programme. A further 39 temporary jobs will also be lost over the next few weeks.

She said the decision to cut jobs was linked to declining sales and increased competition from low- cost manufacturers. She added that the company had exhausted all other actions before announcing the job losses.

Covidien employs 650 people in Tullamore, part of a 42,000-strong global workforce. The Dublin-headquartered company also has operations in Galway and Athlone. It has operated in Ireland for nearly 30 years.

A number of cost-cutting measures were recently introduced at the Tullamore plant, including the loss of overtime and new shift arrangements. However, Siptu branch organiser Frank Jones said that employees were still shocked by yesterday’s news.

“There’s a lot of shock because it came out this morning that there was going to be an announcement and that was the first we had really heard about it. We have been engaging with management as recently as last Friday when there was a meeting and we werent told anything then. It was only when the news broke through the media that we became aware that job losses were a possibility.”

“This is a devastating because Covidien is the biggest employer in the town and so were all in shock,” Mr Jones added.

Consultations between unions and management will begin today.

“Management have told us they envisage people exiting the company by early September so the job losses will be taking effect fairly shortly,” Mr Jones said.

“Theres every hope that jobs can be saved and that’s what we’ll be focusing on in our talks with management.”

He said full-time workers are expected to secure a severance package of six weeks’ pay for every year of service plus the statutory two-weeks entitlement.

In a statement issued yesterday, Covidien said it would continue to be a major employer in Tullamore.

“The company has made significant investments to automate key product lines to competitively position the plant for the future. A further investment of approximately €3 million is planned for this year,” it said.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen described the losses as “deeply regrettable”. Offaly man Mr Cowen said he has spoken to the company’s chief executive who assured him that Covidien remain committed to Tullamore.

“The fact is that this industry cannot escape the global downturn . . . competition from firms based in low-cost countries mean that Covidien will not see a return to previous sales volumes.

“This decline in product volume meant that difficult decisions about scaling down the workforce were necessary to help secure the remaining 450 jobs in Tullamore,” he said.