The global economic downturn is having a major effect on steel customers in all markets and a spokesman for Corus said that since September the business has seen a significant decline in demand.

They said that as a result Corus Distribution Ireland, which also has steel service centres in Dublin, Cork and Athlone, has introduced a series of actions to reduce expenditure.

However, they said, these actions alone 'will not be sufficient to offset the decline in the market, and the business unit has announced proposals to reduce job levels by approximately 26 positions'.

The consultation process with employees will start soon and the company say that wherever possible the losses will be achieved through voluntary redundancy.

The spokesperson said: "Corus is committed to ensuring that it will do everything possible to assist those people leaving the business, and will be putting in place a range of support services designed to help them through this difficult time.

"Corus Distribution remains committed to its strategy of achieving growth in its market share in Ireland and will continue to invest to achieve this."

Following the news of likely redundancies at the Lisburn base the Mayor, Ronnie Crawford has criticised the Northern Ireland Assembly.

He said: "If the Assembly had been attending to the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland, thousands of jobs in the steel and construction industry would have been saved by work on the national Stadium and the John Lewis development.

"The fact is that those jobs are not there and the blame lies fully at the door of this unproductive Executive."