End of an era as Spectra stops processing film
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Wednesday September 01 2010
AN end of an era for a technology that brought much prosperity to town over the years was signalled with the news this week that Spectra are to finish processing photographic film.
One of the key industries alongside Kerry Group keeping hundreds employed in town since its inception in 1970 by Xavier McAuliffe, Spectra have had to bite the bullet on processing film due to the dominance of digital photography today.
With more and more professional and amateur photographers easily uploading photos onto personal computers and making use of cheap printers over the years, the demise of the original Spectra model was on the cards for sometime.
No jobs will be lost, according to the company however, due to the innovative vision of company heads who successfully tendered for the contract to roll-out mobile speed cameras nationally. Up to 50 new jobs were announced with Spectra's winning of the contract last November — after an albeit protracted process — and the company said that these were to be created in Listowel.
It's an end of an era for the original Spectra business, as the company prepares to windup its film operations by September 24 next.
Up to 100 jobs have been created nationally under the mobile speed camera contract — across the GoSafe Consortium that was awarded the deal and of which Spectra is the leading company (alongside French firm Egis Projects and Australian company Redflex).
Spectra General Manager Donal Lucey said that the venture would compensate for jobs lost to the company in recent years as the film side of the business slowly wound down.
"We hope it will save lives on Irish roads, which is the bottom line for this new technology. It's great for Listowel and Spectra. We've been hit pretty hard by rapid changes in photographic technology over the past decade and this will compensate for the jobs we have lost in that period," he told The Kerryman last November. A five-year contract, it is worth €65 million for that period.
