Donaldson Timber Engineering (DTE) is building a trussed rafter and engineered wood floor plant in Ireland.
The fast expanding sawmill and engineered timber product firm says the investment will enable it to tap into the growing Irish construction market, which is forecast to build 50,000 homes a year for the next five years.
The 20,000ft2 plant is being build, at an undisclosed cost, on a three-acre site in Mountmellic, north of Portlaoise.
Construction is scheduled to be complete in spring next year and the production capacity will be 2,500-3,000 trussed rafters a week.
The facility will include an Australian-designed Hydra press, which DTE is currently testing in its plants in Scotland and the Midlands.
It will also feature an X-cut line to make flooring “packages” using the Finnforest Finnjoist system, which is making its Irish debut with Donaldson.
“Our am is to become one of the Republic of Ireland’s key suppliers of engineered timber roof trusses and floor products,” said DTE director George Watson.
He added that the new facility would be backed by the support of the company’s “supplier partners”; importers Crown Timber, which operates a terminal in Wicklow, connector plate maker Mitek and Finnforest.
DTE is recruiting the workforce for the new factory and expects to need 10 staff in technical and office roles and 25 on the shop floor.
In the UK the company has six manufacturing sites and employs 320 people. Total annual prdouction is 17,000 trussed rafters a week. Recently it opened new offices at its Midlands-base in Ilkeston and announced plans to expand output at the site. It also said that it was close to making two acquisitions.
