A €17 MILLION expansion of a whiskey distillery is set to create 30 new jobs in Dublin.

The investment, which was announced earlier today, will take place at Irish Distillers’ Fox and Geese bottling facility in Clondalkin.

Irish Distillers is a subsidiary of the French drinks conglomerate Pernod-Ricard S.A. and is responsible for Irish whiskey brands including Jameson, Paddy and Powers.

The investment will increase the bottling capacity by around 60%.

This will bring about an increase in capacity from 5 million nine-litre cases to 7.5 million cases, up by 2.5 million – which works out at 120 million bottles per year until 2017.

This new development has been supported by the Department for Jobs through the Enterprise Ireland initiative.

Jameson is among the whiskey brands that will be bottled at the expanded site Source: Shutterstock/islavicek

Speaking about the new investment, Jobs Minister Richard Bruton, said, “At the heart of our Action Plan for Jobs is targeting better supports at areas where we have the capacity to grow exports and jobs. Irish whiskey is one such area, and in recent years we have seen hundreds of extra jobs in this area on the back of rapidly growing exports.”

Today’s announcement by Irish Distillers is a great example of how investment in this area can create much-needed jobs right across the country.

Today’s announcement follows a €200 million investment programme by the company which has been taking place since 2012. This has involved the expansion of its Midleton distillery and its Dungourney maturation facility.

The company is targeting overseas markets to increase its operation in the coming years.

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