GUINNESS MAY well lay claim to the status of national treasure, but the pint of plain is also a global brand owned by a multinational corporation.
And it is in the latter light that the wholesale restructuring of the brewer announced yesterday is best understood. Diageo, the £27 billion drinks group which owns Guinness, faces all the same issues of any multinational with significant business interests here. Costs are rising and productivity is falling. On top of that the main product that it manufactures here for export, Guinness, was until recently in decline. As a result the company is reorganising its Irish operations to cut costs, improve efficiency and at the end of the day provide a reasonable and sustainable return on the investment made in the business by its owners, the shareholders in Diageo.
The cold reality of this is that 250 people will lose their jobs and will be hard pushed in the current climate to find alternative employment on the same generous terms. Breweries in Dundalk and Kilkenny will be closed, with all the consequences for the economies of those towns. The company will raise an estimated €500 million through the sale of land at the scaled-down operations planned for St James's Gate. However, some €650 million is to be invested in a new facility outside Dublin, which should help secure the future of the business and the remaining jobs.
The cutbacks announced by Diageo could have been far deeper. Once the emotional dimension associated with Guinness is taken out of the equation yesterday's announcement represents a positive enough outcome to the review process. But, divorcing a great brand from the emotional weight it carries is both impossible and, thankfully, a bad idea from a commercial point of view.
Happily, what is good for Diageo in this instance is also good for all those who feel the capital - if not indeed the national psyche - would suffer should the link with Dublin be broken. The decision to continue to brew Guinness for Ireland and the UK at St James's Gate is a pragmatic and sensitive recognition by Diageo that, in these markets at least, the stout's association with Dublin's Liberties is an integral part of its enduring appeal.
For this reason, if no other, the onus now falls on Diageo to ensure that the fate of the surplus land that it now plans to dispose of does nothing to despoil that legacy. Whatever development takes place, Diageo must endeavour to ensure that, in time, it evokes the same pride in the citizens of Dublin as its famous brewery does today.