Eastland Warehousing tenants have told The Irish Times that finding bonded warehouse space for their wine and spirit imports has become a problem following the closure of the warehouse. The liquidators have closed the premises until next Tuesday to identify the ownership of all stock in the premises, in advance of releasing any stock to importers.

But the warehouse has been closed to new imports for about a week. There are some 23 bonded warehouses in the Dublin area. All but two are owned by big importers/distributors to store their own products exclusively.

Eastland and the Dublin Port and Docks are the only "common use" operations warehouses which are used by a number of smaller importers and take in a number of different excisable goods.

Significant assignments of wine and spirits are due to be landed in Dublin in coming weeks by these small and medium sized importers, for the lucrative Christmas market. These imports will need bonded space if the Revenue is to get the excise duty and VAT due on alcohol. Dublin Port and Docks is now understood to be making some new bonded space available and a new bonded warehouse in Swords has been approved by the Revenue.