Diageo is to make its largest ever capital investment – totalling £514.7 million (650 million euros, $1 billion) – in its Irish beer business.
The company is using the money to build a brand new brewery near Dublin and to upgrade its St James’s Gate Guinness production facility.
The new site will be finished in 2013 and will produce Guinness as well as other Diageo brands such as Kilkenny and Harp.
“Our ambition is to create a brewing hub, which will meet the highest standards of technology, efficiency and environmental management,” explained chief executive Paul Walsh.
The opening of the Dublin brewery will, unfortunately, signal the closure of the company’s sites in Kilkenny and Dundalk. Diageo has said it will relocate employees where possible, and provide a severance package, career counselling and outplacement support to those made redundant.
