North Cork Creameries has ceased operations at its Kanturk plant, putting up to 100 jobs at risk after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suspended the co-operative’s wastewater discharge licence for the second time in three months.
Staff at the plant were called to a meeting on Thursday and informed that redundancies would be made, while shareholders were briefed separately in Cork and Kerry. SIPTU, which represents around 80 of the plant’s 95 employees, said its members were not formally notified of the decision and has requested an urgent meeting with the co-operative. A meeting with members is scheduled in Kanturk on Monday.
John Paul O’Shea, Fine Gael TD for Cork North West, described the announcement as “a devastating blow for workers, their families and the wider community.”
North Cork Creameries, a farmer-owned co-operative established in 1928, has faced ongoing regulatory challenges over its wastewater management. Its discharge licence was first suspended last November but restored in early January following submissions from the co-operative.
On 19 February, the EPA said the co-operative had failed to maintain adequate control of its wastewater treatment plant in the six weeks after the licence was reinstated, resulting in continued non-compliance with emissions limits. The agency cited the persistent nature of these issues as creating “an elevated risk of discharges that threatened to cause an immediate adverse effect on the environment, in particular the ecological and chemical water quality of the River Allow,” prompting a second suspension.
In a statement, the EPA confirmed that two notices had been issued directing the co-op to halt effluent discharges and stressed that operations could not resume until the facility could reliably maintain compliance with licence conditions without posing a risk to the environment.
The co-operative processes more than 315 million litres of whole milk annually into a variety of dairy products and food ingredients. Following the production halt, some of the milk that would normally be processed by North Cork Creameries is expected to be temporarily handled by the Carbery Group in west Cork.
The EPA investigation follows previous concerns, including a major fish kill in the River Blackwater last August. Although the agency conducted an exhaustive search, it found no causal link between the co-op’s discharges and the fish mortalities.
Attempts to reach North Cork Creameries and its board for comment were unsuccessful. The closure underscores the challenges faced by Irish dairy producers in balancing environmental compliance with operational continuity and highlights the potential local economic impact of regulatory enforcement.
