Siptu’s manufacturing division organiser Greg Ennis said that in negotiations over the redundancy package, the company claimed its energy costs “went through the roof and the price of cardboard and paper to make the games went up by 60 per cent. However, the energy subsidies by the Government were not applicable to that company. I don’t know the intricacies of that, but they didn’t qualify for them.
Mr Ennis said he had challenged Cartamundi during the negotiations over a report in The Irish Times that its parent had taken more than €30 million in dividends out of the Irish operation since taking it over from Hasbro in 2015. The total included a €2.9 million dividend declared last July. The union organiser said he was also told demand for games made at the plant had fallen substantially since the end of Covid-19 restrictions, resulting in a €100,000 per month loss at the Irish operation, and a substantial order was lost to Vietnam.
He said the union “recommended the [redundancy] deal as the best that could be secured in the circumstances”. The fact the company had made the decision to close the facility “made it a difficult negotiation”, he said, adding: “I’m only going to lead people into a dispute they can win.”