My first thoughts are with the workers and their families who are now facing into a bleak new year. The plans by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to cut Jobseekers payments by €12 over the next two years must add to the worry for this respected and dedicated workforce.

Pall has been operating in the town since 1997 and some of these workers gave the best years of their lives to the company.

Nearly 1,800 people were on the Live Register in Tipperary town in January – that’s half the working population. Some 100 people joined the Register in December and now at least another 90 are set to join the dole queues when the plant is due to close in May.

This is also awful dreadful news for a local economy which has been ravaged by unemployment. Shops and services will feel the effects and the atmosphere in the whole town will be further deflated.

Even during the boom years, Tipperary town suffered from government neglect.

This town needed services and promotion to bring investment. It needed a bypass to improve its links with ports and airports to make it attractive to exporting firms.

Instead, it became another of Ireland’s towns forgotten by a government enthralled by international finance.

The workers at Pall and all of Tipp town are the latest victims of a Fianna Fáil party that lost its roots.