Padraig Donohue Director of A&J Bedding Ltd. providing a tour of their mattress making factory, explaining the processes involved to Ms Rosarii Mannion, Chairperson Pobal.

Leader grant helps local mattress firm expand

Published: Tue 16 Aug 2022, 3:42 PM

Last updated: Tue 16 Aug 2022, 3:43 PM

Community and enterprise projects in County Cavan have shared in over €8 million worth of funding over the last six years.

The grant money was allocated by Cavan Leader Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014-2022, which commenced in 2016.

The programme has closed to new expressions of interest for funding, with €102,000 left to fund projects which are already working their way through the application process.

Cavan Leader RDP funding is administered by Cavan County Local Development (CCLD) which confirmed that €2,172,885.20 has been committed to support enterprise projects to expand and create jobs in the county.

A&J Bedding and Furniture is one such company to have received the funding boost. Padraig Donohue and James Lynch originally established their mattress making company in Ballyjamesduff in 2012. They now operate from a number of units in the Corlurgan business park, Ballinagh Road on the outskirts of Cavan Town.

Grant funding helped them purchase of six items of equipment to broaden their range of mattresses, increase quality and improve the manufacturing efficiencies.

"Following the installation of the equipment in early 2022 we increased our employee numbers by four to 34, and have increased our average mattress production from 700 to 1,000 per week," said Padraig Donohue.

They expressed their gratitude to all involved in the Leader programme for their help and support in the application process. Their mattresses are on sale in retail stores countrywide including McIntyre’s Furniture Store, Cavan.

Recently the Board of Pobal visited A&J Bedding and Furniture to see an enterprise which has benefitted from funding. In 2021, Pobal distributed €765m to beneficiaries across circa 40 programmes (Leader RDP is one of those programmes).

John Toland, Senior Development Officer of CCLD the implementing partner of the Cavan Leader was "delighted to see the benefits of Leader funding being returned to a Cavan enterprise who continue to develop and grow their business nationally, in the U.K. market and are creating further employment".

CCLD are keen to point out that the Leader funding programme is due to commence in 2023 and information will be released as soon as it’s available.