As always seemed likely, despite the frenzied last ditch efforts of the Irish lobby, Digital Equipment Corp has decided that it is the Galway plant that must close, with the loss of 780 jobs. The company is softening the blow a little by retaining the Galway research and development operation, which employs 350 people. DEC also employs 350 sales and service personnel in Ireland.Irish Employment Minister Ruairi Quinn flew to Boston last weekend for talks with DEC president Robert Palmer in a last-ditch bid to save the Galway jobs, and Tony O’Reilly, Irish-born chairman of H J Heinz Co, was also rallied to lobby DEC, but to no avail.Manufacturing operations – the plant makes VAX 9000s and VAX 6000s – will be gradually phased out over the next 12 months, with completion expected by February next year.
