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Rollingsnews.ie

As HP shuts its Leixlip print plant, we look back at its 20 years in Kildare

Up to 500 job losses were announced at the firm today.

AFTER MUCH SPECULATION, HP Inc confirmed today that it will close its print business in Kildare, 20 years after it first opened its doors.

The company said that it was likely that close to 500 jobs will be lost at the Leixlip facility over the coming 12 months.

The move is part of a restructuring programme the multinational announced last year in a bid to save up to $300 million every year by 2020.

In recent years, the computer giant has fallen victim to the march of technology, with consumers shifting away from traditional desktop PCs in favour of laptops and tablets.

The Leixlip facility, which makes ink cartridges for printers, has effectively become obsolete with the rise of cloud computing and digital documents.

While today’s announcement is a big blow for north Kildare, HP said it will will maintain the sales operators for its printing and personal systems business in Ireland.

With that in mind, let’s look back at the rise and fall of the print plant in Leixlip.

Arrival in Leixlip

In March 1995, Hewlett-Packard announced that it would open a factory in Leixlip to assemble ink cartridges for printers, bringing 1,000 jobs to north Kildare.

The computer giant, which first came to Ireland in the 1970s, pumped IR£328 million into a 200-acre site that was formerly home of a meat factory and abattoir. The production line was up and running by November 1996.

With an Intel microchip factory just two miles up the road, the Leixlip area suddenly became a major European hub for IT behemoths.

Job Losses HP Inc HP plant in Leixlip Rollingnews.ie Rollingnews.ie

Future prospects for the new factory looked good in the late 1990s – HP inkjet printers were all the rage and enjoyed a 60% share of the world’s booming print market.

The Irish Independent reported at the time that PC users were just beginning to use their printers to “print off information from the internet and for colour illustration”.

By mid-1997, Hewlett-Packard was hiring between 50 and 60 new staff every month.

Speaking in June of that year, the group’s president at the time, Lew Platt, said it was “the most rapid startup from a greenfield site” HP had ever achieved.

The computer giant was tipped to double its workforce at Leixlip in its first five years of operations.

‘A coup for Ireland’

The group decided to base its European data centre at the Leixlip campus in the late 1990s. This move saw Hewlett-Packard’s Kildare workforce swell to 2,100 employees.

IDA Ireland, the state agency responsible for attracting foreign investment, played a part in securing the investment for Kildare.

Ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern called it “a coup for Ireland’s growing international IT reputation”, according to a report in the Irish Examiner.

“This further investment by Hewlett-Packard in Ireland will help to ensure the company’s long-term success here and deepen its roots in the Irish economy,” Ahern said at the time.

The former taoiseach said it was a “major and important breakthrough in IDA Ireland’s strategy to position Ireland at the centre of Europe in e-business activity”.

National Economic and Social Forums Ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (2000) Eamonn Farrell / Photocall Ireland Eamonn Farrell / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

Largest employer

By the turn of the millennium, Hewlett-Packard had established itself as the largest IT employer in the country with more than 4,000 staff on its book across operations in Kildare, Galway, Dublin and Belfast.

The Leixlip campus continued to grow throughout the ‘noughties’, with the firm pumping €21 million into an inkjet technology development centre in 2004. Hundreds more jobs were added to the Kildare operations in 2006 when HP expanded its financial services unit there for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Job Losses HP Inc Ex-Tánaiste Mary Harney at the Leixlip factory Rollingnews.ie Rollingnews.ie

However, two years later, when the global economy went over the edge, the company announced it would cut up to 25,000 jobs from its global workforce following a $14 billion acquisition of computer services firm EDS.

Fears of massive job losses in Ireland were unfounded – the company shed just over 130 roles nationwide, with the bulk of global job losses being recorded in the US.

However, that was only the beginning of a restructuring programme that would effectively continue until today.

The company’s global profits peaked in 2010 at $8.8 billion and declined over the next five years as it struggled to compete in a changing technology landscape.

In 2012, Hewlett-Packard announced another bout of job losses, with 27,000 roles on the chopping block as part of a $3.5 billion savings plan. That resulted in 280 jobs being lost at its Dublin office in July 2013.

In 2014, a further 16,000 job cuts were announced in an effort to relieve further pressure on its profit margins.

Split

In 2015, Hewlett-Packard was split into two separate companies – HP Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

HP Inc focuses on traditional consumer products like PCs and printers, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise specialises in business services like cloud computing and big data analytics.

HP Inc tried to innovate by mooching into the 3D printing sphere and by bringing out a line of laptops. This helped it achieve a net profit of $2.7 billion last year. However, the firm still decided to plough ahead with yet another restructuring programme.

HP INC 758A0015_90502159 Maurice O’Connell, general manager at HP Inc's Leixlip plant Eamonn Farrell / Rollingnews.ie Eamonn Farrell / Rollingnews.ie / Rollingnews.ie

In October last year, the company announced that it would cut 4,000 jobs from its 50,000-strong global workforce between 2017 and 2019, once again sparking fears of job losses in Ireland.

Those fears came true this morning when it was confirmed that the Leixlip print facility was one of the casualities.

The firm said in a statement that it was “likely that close to 500 HP employees will be impacted and leave the business over the next 12 months”.

HP said that Ireland “remains an excellent environment for technology companies” and would remain a “key market” for the company. It also said it will maintain the sales operators for its printing and personal systems business in Ireland.

However, today’s announcement is a big blow to north Kildare and brings an end to a long chapter in Leixlip’s history of foreign investment.

Written by Conor McMahon and posted on Fora.ie

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    Mute John
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:00 PM

    I feel really sorry for all those employees and their families but in all seriousness HP charge 43 Euro for a 10ml ink cartridge and they wonder why nobody wants to use their printers?
    Liquid Gold would probably be cheaper to buy.

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    Mute Darach Malone
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:29 PM

    Printer ink costs more per drop than Chanel # 5.

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    Mute John Hagin Meade
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    Feb 8th 2017, 9:03 PM

    @John:
    I have changed over to a Brother printer. A refill only costs €5 but I found a supplier in Germany that can supply 28 compatible cartridges (that’s 7 sets) for €23 (includes postage!) so I can print forever. I have been using them for about 3 years now and they are great when printing photographs. I won’t mention the names of the suppliers here as that might be considered advertising and I might be banned.

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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:39 PM

    Cloud and digital documents negated the ink requirement. Like supermarkets finished the milkman – and bus conductors lost out to ticket machines. And shops to the Internet. And…

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    Mute Tweety McTweeter
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:18 PM

    Can you come back and finish your comment? The anticipation is killing me…

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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:28 PM

    good…

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    Mute Tweety McTweeter
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:46 PM

    Ouch, that hurt

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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:50 PM

    the anticipation?

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 7:18 PM

    Mymilkman.ie is flourishing and as good value as the Supermarkets plus you rarely run out of milk. Seems “Ernie” (He drove the fastest milkcart in the West, according to Benny Hill) ain’t daid yet…

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:40 PM

    Wonder how much this closure and the destruction of 500 jobs and the enormous damage to the families they support has to do with the fact that Ireland can’t do any cute-hoor tax deals anymore nor give any sort of state subsidy without going cap in hand to the EU for permission which will almost invariably be ”NEIN!”

    ”VOTE LISBON FOR JOBS AND RECOVERY” wasn’t that the placard Brian Cowen was waving? Where’s the (decent) jobs and recovery then? Don’t tell me about zero-hours and Scambridge and so on and so forth that’s allegedly brought ”unemployment” ”down” from 15% to 7%. I’d say the emigrant boat and plane have more to do with that in reality but of course there’s always lies damned lies and statistics and the likes of Kevin Cardiff are still producing them.
    Sure last year we were told there was a 26% jump in GDP (thanks to Mr Noonan’s new besties, the vultures) but we’re still 200 billion in debt for the banksters and borrowing nine billion a year just to pay the interest and have to ask the EUrocrats for permission to wipe our holes?

    Expect much more of this.

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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:46 PM

    But John – we, through our elected representatives applied to join the EEC/EU. And most here think the UK is daft to leave it?!

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    Mute prop joe
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:16 PM

    @John. Sad day for the Workers. Hopefully they can pick something up quickly. Our economy is built on another 50 to 100 multi nationals. If more start leaving we will be in trouble. Our enemies in Europe will be feasting on our carcass now that our main ally in Europe is leaving.

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 7:23 PM

    I recall as a young lad growing up in Cavan back in ’72 how some Cyaavan rebels would paint “EEC NO!” on roads and bridges (in fact there’s a little butt of a bridge wall out by the Nadrageale lakes that still bears the words, very faintly. It’s an historical document now). Back then we thought we were applying thru our elected representatives to join a common market in which customs duties and queues would be a thing of the past. We (altho’ I was only six so use the term advisedly) didn’t back then apply to join a sovereignty stealing hyper-militarising bankster controlled sEUperstate. That came later. And when we did vote to reject it twice, our democratic voices were ignored and trampled on. Some of us have good memories. Was it for this the Wild grey wing etc.?

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    Mute David Van-Standen
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:40 PM

    I’m pretty sure John that they called those lakes Lacken rather than Nadrageale, like it says on the map. :-)

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 9:24 PM

    Hi David only one of those lakes is called Lacken but collectively they’re the Nadrageales. The little bit of a bridge wall I mean is on the Lismeen road where the old schoolhouse used to be. Btw did you have a dad called Mike who once taught me judo in Oldcastle thirty five odd years ago, a mountain of a man and a nice chap too? Probably not but anyway you are only the second person I’ve heard of with that surname. Too old and cracked for anything but tai chi chuan now,,, sic transit.

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    Mute Eóin
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    Feb 8th 2017, 10:09 PM

    There’s so many inaccuracies here, it really deserves its own fact check. Drivel

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    Mute David Van-Standen
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    Feb 8th 2017, 11:55 PM

    I know the bridge alright and Yes John, that’s my dad, I used to help out with a lot of the classes around the area, its a small world. :-)

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 9th 2017, 12:43 AM

    That is gas David. Regards to your Dad (sifu). Must meet up for a pint in McBrides sometime.

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 9th 2017, 12:44 AM

    Assertions and opinions are not the same as stated facts and rebuttals Eoin. Glad to be the one to enlighten you as to these distinctions.

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    Mute Joseph Dempsey
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:48 PM

    I’m sure those being let go today will marvel at this pointless journey down Memory Lane. Bizzare timing for such an article.

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    Mute Fred Jensen
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:44 PM

    Big blow for North Kildare. Arguably that part of the country was the first to experience the Celtic Tiger, with Intel opening in 1989 and this place in 1995, as well as Maynooth University nearby. Now both Intel and HP are trimming their workforces. Let’s hope Leixlip wins the next round of investment from Intel. They’re apply for planning permission for an extenison to the plant to employ a further 2,500 workers.

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    Mute Darach Malone
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:33 PM

    Microsoft, Dell, IBM & Intel are all within about half an hours drive of HP. They don’t all soothe same thing but hopefully there may be opportunities there for those being let go.

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    Mute Darach Malone
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:34 PM

    *do the same thing

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    Mute Padraic mc laughlin
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:34 PM

    From now on our country needs to start respecting Donald. Piss him off and 500 jobs will become 5000 very soon. Give him the god damn shamrocks

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    Mute Charlie Kavanagh
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:38 PM

    Feck all to do with the Donald.

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    Mute Alex Falcone
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:39 PM

    @Padraic mc laughlin:
    All the furore over a simple auld bowl of shamrock.

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    Mute Brian MacCarthaigh
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:40 PM

    @Padraic mc laughlin:Bet you fantasize about giving him a blow job.

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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 7:39 PM

    Can’t he visit his Clare golf course and pick his own? He could jump on a US warbird or GulfScream CIA torture jet and get there for free via Shannon Warport.

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    Mute Rosa Parks
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:07 PM

    @Padraic mc laughlin: Loose lips sink Leixlip.

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    Mute Aengus O'Connor
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    Feb 8th 2017, 9:55 PM

    First and foremost a tough day for all the staff impacted. Wish them all the best. When the HP plant was built in the mid 90′s the story locally was that the plant was built with a dual purpose of being able to be converted to a hospital at limited costs. Is there potential to make a good news story out of a bad one? Place the children’s hospital on the site. 5 mins from motorway. Close to rail and bus services. 20.min drive to James hospital site. Avoid the car crash and congestion that will be the children’s hospital location.

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    Mute John Hagin Meade
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:48 PM

    Reading this story reminds me of the parable ‘The seed on the rock’. I expect this won’t be the only foreign multi-national to leave Ireland or downsize if it suits their business model. Dark times ahead I think.

    38
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    Mute Fred Jensen
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:38 PM

    @John Hagin Meade:

    I’d say you’re the type of lad who revels in dark times John. You’d be at your happiest when the country is on its knees.

    26
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    Mute John O'Driscoll
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    Feb 8th 2017, 7:25 PM

    John must be delirious with joy for most of his existence in this benighted rock so.

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    Mute Maurice Slater
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:34 PM

    Aengus Ó Snodaigh, must be devastated,

    21
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    Mute David Reilly
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:45 PM

    Stores should stop selling their products and the people should switch to another brand. This should happen with any business leaving the country. Hit them back where it hurts. Profits.

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    Mute Padraic mc laughlin
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:51 PM

    @David Reilly:idiotic comment

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    Mute John
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:04 PM

    @David Reilly

    Where do you buy your Irish made cars, clothes, electrical goods etc?:

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    Mute David Reilly
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:07 PM

    And your comment about Donald Trump is what? Other than the red thumbs I mean.

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    Mute David Reilly
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:10 PM

    What has thst got to do with my comment? They are not all based in Ireland and leaving causing hundreds of job losses to families. You are missing my point completely. Have a great evening

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    Mute Quiet Goer
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    Feb 8th 2017, 7:55 PM

    The fecking Chinese will be delighted with the 500 jobs they’ll be getting as a result

    14
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    Mute Paraic McDonagh
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    Feb 8th 2017, 8:21 PM

    It’s not about moving to China or Trump getting revenge. Most people don’t print at home anymore. So the demand for inkjet cartridges has completely dried up. I used to work in a video tape plant, same story, no need to blame the government or boycott videotape manufacturers that pulled out of Ireland.

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    Mute Don Juan
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    Feb 8th 2017, 5:33 PM

    Used to hate walking the M50 corridor at night… Couldn’t stop imagining ghost cattle!! Aaahhgggh

    12
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    Mute Rosa Parks
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:17 PM

    This is what happens when our leaders snub the POTUS

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    Mute Alan McCann
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:31 PM

    Nice to see someone standing up for him

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    Mute Rosa Parks
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    Feb 8th 2017, 6:37 PM

    Enda should look out for Ireland by not getting us into hot water with our most important source of fdi

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    Mute Leitrim303
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    Feb 8th 2017, 9:58 PM

    ink cartridges where always a scam. great theese new ink tank printers are the way to go 6500 colour pages without refills

    http://www.currys.ie/product/epson-ecotank-et2550-allinone-wireless-inkjet-printer/334860/409.4

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