Castlemahon plant to be wound down

The liquidator brought in at the Castlemahon Foods plant has said today that the company is being “wound down”.

Kieran Wallace of KPMG said the process would take five to six weeks with the first step being the cessation of all production at the plant located in Newcastlewest.

Castlemahon Foods is owned by the O’ Kane Poultry group in Northern Ireland.They said in a statement that,following a "long period of unprofitable trading", recent attemptsto restructure or sell the business as a going concern had beenunsuccessful.

Fine Gael Limerick West TD Dan Neville said on the news,

“The news that Castlemahon Food Products' poultry processingplant is set to close is a major body blow to the local populationand compounds the situation which arose in January 2005 when 140poultry jobs were lost at Kantoher Poultry Products and 140 jobs atthat time in Castlemahon"

Up to 300 jobs are at risk.