Seventy-five jobs are to be lost with the

closure of McDonagh’s furniture company in Portadown.

The managing director Terry McDonagh has blamed the job losses on the rising cost of manufacturing and cheaper foreign imports.

The business was set up 100 years ago by his grandfather and is expected to close within months.

The MP for the area, David Simpson of the DUP, said he was saddened by the closure.

He praised the company for its efforts to stay in business against competition from cheap imports.

Sinn Fein councillor John O’Dowd said it was a blow for the workers, their families and the Portadown economy.

“Manufacturing is being stripped from the landscape of Portadown and indeed from the wider economy in the constituency of Upper Bann,” Mr O’Dowd said.