Business

O'Neills back in production after health trusts order 55,000 sets of scrubs

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis with O'Neills's managing director on a recent tour of the Strabane factory.
Secretary of State Brandon Lewis with O'Neills's managing director on a recent tour of the Strabane factory. Secretary of State Brandon Lewis with O'Neills's managing director on a recent tour of the Strabane factory.

PRODUCTION has resumed at O’Neills after the sportswear giant secured a deal to make 55,000 sets of scrubs for the north’s health trusts.

Managing director Kieran Kennedy confirmed today that work had already resumed at its Dublin dye-house. He expected that 150 people would be back working within its Strabane factory by the end of the week.

It comes less than two weeks after nearly all 950 of the company’s staff on the island were temporarily laid off following the cancellation of all sporting events.

Speaking to the Irish News, Mr Kennedy recalled how the entire arrangement for the scrubs came to together over the weekend.

“I got a call from the Western Trust on Friday night to say there was a severe shortage of scrubs and could O’Neills help them.”

After collecting samples from the trust’s director of acute services, Geraldine McKay, he recruited a small numbers of staff to create samples on Saturday morning.

After getting the thumbs up for the products from a number of Derry-based GPs later on Saturday, he hatched out an agreement with trust bosses on Monday morning.

Mr Kennedy said the anti-bacterial polygiene coating used by O’Neills for its sportswear had proved ideal for surgical scrubs.

“Because we have our own dye-house in Dublin, we can apply this finishing property onto the fabric,” he said.

“I pushed the button this morning, so we have actually starting dying the fabric in Dublin.

“The Trust could be looking for anywhere up to 55,000 sets of these,” he said.

The managing director spent Monday afternoon contacting staff in a bid to get them back into the Strabane factory as soon as possible.

“It’ll be a very high level of production,” he said. “We’ll get as many machinists in as we can. But there are a lot of our normal operations that we won’t need, such as printing.

“Cutting is automated, but the main thing is to get the stitchers back, as many as we can.

“We will hopefully have 150 people back this week.”

Mr Kennedy said the 55,000 sets represented an initial order for all the north’s health trusts. But accepted that there could be a much wider demand outside of Northern Ireland.

“That’s what they want to start with. I’m just waiting for an email to get the numbers sorted out, the ratios, sizes, colours, whatever they want.

“I think there will be a huge demand going forward. At the end of the day, we’ll do whatever we can to meet the demand. We have to play our part.”

Reflecting on a “mad” week, Mr Kennedy said the UK Government’s move to guarantee 80 per cent of salaries on Friday had provided a welcome safety net for the O’Neills workforce.

“It’s very difficult to run an operation if you don’t have any orders. We’re just delighted to help.

“This is completely different from anything we’ve done before. But we have the capabilities and our staff have the capabilities,” he said.

“There is an onus on us to protect our staff and our business, but at the end of the day, when the call comes out and there’s something we can help with, this is what we’re about.

“We’re a family business and we’re about helping people.”