The luck of the Irish ran out this week as a manufacturer of breast implants announced it would be closing a factory in Ireland and moving the 360 jobs to Costa Rica.
Allergan Inc., best known as the manufacture of wrinkle treatment Botox, announced Wednesday that it was closing a factory in the small town of Arklow, Ireland, over the next 18 months.
Residents of the town of just under 10,000 were not happy.
“They brought the Costa Ricans over and we trained them,” Tony Murray, an 18- year veteran of the plant, told daily The Irish Independent. “An operator that does my job in Costa Rica earns 63 (euros) a week. That’s ridiculous. You can’t compete.”
Allergan came to Costa Rica in early 2007 after it acquired competitor Inamed and its Costa Rican subsidiary, McGhann Medical. In March of that year, Allergan inaugurated a new, $13 million plant in the Global Park free zone in Heredia. The 3.5-hectare facility was built with the manufacturing of breast implants in mind.
President Oscar Arias was on hand to cut the ribbon.
