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RTÉ News
4 days ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
Unions seek new owner for Wellman International in Cavan
Unions representing workers at Wellman International in Mullagh, Co Cavan have said that a new owner for the company must be found amid fears of job cuts at the manufacturing and recycling business. The firm, which employs 215 people, filed a petition with the High Court on Tuesday to place its operation in Mullagh into examinership. Three unions, SIPTU, Unite and Connect, met workers in recent days and will be engaging with the examiner next week. They are calling on the Government to intervene to find an alternative owner for the factory. The company manufactures recycled polyester fibres from used plastic materials that have a wide variety of industrial uses, including in the automotive, home, leisure and hygiene sectors. However, Wellman said the business has suffered losses in the double-digit millions in 2023 and 2024, resulting from increased energy prices following "geopolitical conflicts and fierce competition from low-priced imports from China, Africa and Middle East". As a result, its parent company, Indorama Ventures, has withdrew its support. SIPTU Organiser Alan Clark said the announcement by the company earlier this week was a "body blow" to the local community. "Wellman have been an established employer in Mullagh, Co Cavan, for over 50 years so SIPTU is calling on the Government to intervene and protect as many jobs as possible," Mr Clark said. "The reality is that any job losses will have a major impact not only on our members but the local community. "SIPTU is calling on all local public representatives to put their shoulders to the wheel and work with the IDA to support these workers in securing a prospective purchaser or investor in order to protect the long term security of employment in the area." Unite Regional Officer Michael O'Brien said: "The workers are very clear that the plant can be turned around if the majority of plastic recyclables currently being exported was instead processed locally. "This plant can play a critical role in helping Ireland meet our EU plastics recycling targets and must not be allowed to close by default. "When we meet the examiner next week, Unite will be stressing that the expertise and experience of the workforce must be harnessed to maximise the chances of finding a buyer and preserving these vital jobs and skills," Mr O'Brien added. Connect National Construction Official Tom Faulkner said that any job losses would also have a "devastating" impact on the local community. "We are calling on the government to ensure that all relevant agencies work together with the examiner to secure a new investor in order to safeguard the 217 jobs and the future of the plant going forward." Wellman International began operations in Mullagh in March 1973. The site, which was acquired by Indorama Ventures in 2011, is the largest European producer of recycled polyester fibres. Indorama Ventures is listed in Thailand and is a petrochemicals producer, with a global manufacturing footprint across Europe, Africa, Americas, and Asia Pacific. The Cavan-based arm of the company carries out manufacturing in Ireland but principally does its business in the rest of Europe.
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Why the feverish talk of ousting Badenoch already? Tory MPs know the future looks dire
Back in 1997, the former minister and famous political diarist Alan Clark identified a potentially fatal flaw in the Conservative party's leadership system. No, not the controversial membership vote – William Hague did not introduce that until 1998. For Clark, eloquent reactionary that he was, the problem was giving MPs the vote and formal mechanisms to challenge the leader when the old 'magic circle' was abolished in the 1960s. The problem, as Clark saw it, was that it would turn the question of the leadership into a pageant without end. The press would always be able to speculate about a contest, and MPs looking to puff themselves up would have an easy way to do so. Over time, the party's old norms of internal discipline would, said Clark, be worn away. A quarter of a century on, events lend credence to his depressing thesis. It was once said of the Conservative party that loyalty was its secret weapon; nobody says that today. In the 1990s, Clark could write of the foolishness of leadership hopefuls who missed their chance, waiting for a better shot at a job that had only fallen vacant a handful of times since the second world war; as it stands, David Cameron was the last Tory leader to remain in post for an entire parliament. There is surely no disputing that the Conservative party has become a highly unstable institution, and few institutions benefit from being unstable. But there is a compelling counter-argument: which of the recently deposed Tory leaders did not deserve to go? Boris Johnson fell because he could not command enough support from his MPs to staff a government; Theresa May because she could not steer the government through Brexit; Liz Truss because she tanked the party's economic reputation (and its polling). Whatever you think about Partygate, or Brexit, or the mini-budget, in each case the leader was failing at their most essential function: delivering victory for, or failing that securing the survival of, the Conservative and Unionist party. This is the context in which the current, increasingly feverish speculation about Kemi Badenoch's leadership is taking place. Her supporters can fairly claim that the Tories have made a vice of leadership contests, and that their woman has not yet been in the job a year. Her critics can, equally fairly, make the case that she is failing at the most basic job of any Conservative leader: survival. Last month's local elections were a shattering rout. Overall, the party lost two-thirds of the seats it was defending; in several counties, it went from near-hegemonic control to single-digit shares of the vote. That has shaken complacent MPs out of the notion that if they held on in 2024, they had a 'safe seat'; many have also just lost the councillors who formed the core of their local activist base. Were next year's elections to play out the same way, the Conservative machine would be disembowelled across another broad swath of England. Worse still, it could suffer humiliating reversals in Edinburgh and Cardiff. Across much of mainland Britain, the Tories would suddenly be in a potentially fatal position: no longer being the most plausible rightwing option on the ballot paper. Badenoch's allies insist that she needs time to turn the ship around. That was always an argument with a clock on it, but it has been worn thinner still by the brutal fact that the Conservatives have actually started going backwards. In May, the party actually under-polled last year's (already catastrophic) general election performance. The polls also tell their own story. Prior to the conclusion of the leadership contest in November, the Tories' share was rising as Labour's fell. Almost immediately afterwards, its polling went into a nosedive – with Reform UK the main beneficiary. Fairly or unfairly, the balance of opinion inside the party seems to be not whether there will be a challenge to Badenoch's leadership, but when. The most obvious opening is in November, when she marks her first anniversary as leader: the point at which the party's rules stop protecting a new leader from being challenged. The window of maximum danger runs from then until next May's local elections and their aftermath; if she survives that, it's harder to imagine MPs finding the will to depose her later. But the Conservative party's internal rules are much more flexible than Labour's. That one-year immunity from challenge? It's just a rule of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, and they can change it. If the parliamentary party gets its heart set on removing a leader, it can. With such a shrunken parliamentary party, the threshold of letters to the 1922 chairman needed to trigger a contest is lower than it was in the comparative salad days of the last parliament. Yet both wings of the party took heavy punishment at the general election, and the current balance of the parliamentary party favours neither. Badenoch won last November by consolidating her own supporters with the anti-Robert Jenrick vote. The key question is whether that second group will decide to move, either because of a plausible challenge from one of their own (James Cleverly 2.0?), or because Jenrick starts to look like the lesser of two evils – a possibility Badenoch increases every time she inches towards his positions on issues such as the European convention on human rights. Whether a new leader will save the party is another question entirely. The Tory party was once described as an absolute monarchy moderated by regicide; today, it increasingly resembles a state of absolute regicide. Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome
Daily Mirror
23-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Company 'buys out' part of bust UK travel agent as customers fight for refunds
Jetline Travel went into administration - it is unclear how many people have been impacted but it is likely to be in the thousands with the British firm having a 25-year history A company has reportedly bought out parts of the collapsed travel agent Jetline Travel. Customers were left reeling as Jetline Travel, a British travel firm with 25 years of history, collapsed into administration late last month. The company's downfall came just one month after losing its ATOL protection, leaving holidaymakers without the safeguard against potential issues. The scale of the impact remains uncertain, but it could affect thousands. With an ATOL license for nearly 5,000 passengers, reports suggest that up to 800 customers may now face holiday cancellations. Now Travel Weekly is reporting that London-based tour operator Travelodeal has acquired 'specific assets' from the failed Atol holder. A spokesperson for Travelodeal said it had taken over assets including customer and marketing databases, website domains and content, as well as the Jetline Holidays and Jetline Cruise brand intellectual property. READ MORE: Foreign Office warns of week of 'severe travel disruption' in EU country However, it has not "taken over any existing bookings or obligations,' the spokesperson said. They added that the company was 'happy to help' affected customers where possible, although they do not appear legally obligated to do so. Travelodeal managing director Mazdiyar Daruwala said: 'The acquisition of the Jetline brand and customer base aligns perfectly with our vision to lead the UK market in tailor-made holidays, escorted tours and cruises.' Earlier this month one particularly distressed customer reached out to the Mirror, sharing their story: "Myself and three others have been affected by Jetline Travel going into administration," they said. "We had a package holiday booked for a cruise and stay in Hawaii and are in the process of trying to claim our money back. I am extremely disappointed as this was a special holiday for my 60th birthday and will have to wait until next year now before I can celebrate." Another customer lamented: "Our holiday including cruise, flights and hotels appear to has gone. Totally unable to contact Jetline." Insolvency professionals Alan Clark from Carter Clark and Neil Bennett from Leonard Curtis stepped in on 28 March as administrators, following Jetline's tumble into administration. Despite registering a healthy £28.1 million turnover and a £655,000 operating profit in 2023, according to TTG, Jetline Travel's demise in March as an ATOL operator left around 5,000 customers, mostly booked on cruises, in limbo. Jetline customers were left in the lurch as a slew of their cruise bookings with Princess, Cunard, and Holland America got axed due to a 'breach of contract'. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said in early March: "If you are currently overseas and you hold a scheduled flight e-ticket, the flight remains valid for the return journey. You are advised to check-in with the airline as per the existing flight ticket. We are currently collating information from the company, and we will update this page shortly with instructions for Jetline Travel Ltd ATOL protected bookings on how to make a claim."
