OKR Group, the Irish franchise holders of Burger King, the fast food restaurant group, has announced a £7 million (€8.88 million) investment, which will increase the number of their employees by 240 to over 1,000 by the end of the year.

Six restaurants, including the group's first two drive-thru operations, will open in 1999 bringing the total to 23 in the Republic. The expansion is part of the group's development plan to have 50 restaurants by 2005.

They currently employ 800 people in 18 restaurants.

The OKR chairman, Mr Pat O'Leary, said there was an increasing demand for fast food within the Burger King chain. The group has a £34 million turnover, an average of £1.9 million per restaurant.

Mr O'Leary added that with new planning restrictions on the size of shopping centres, the drive-thru restaurant provided development opportunities and would create over 500 jobs within the OKR group by 2001.

"With the traffic flows increasing the whole time, people are going to use out-of-town centres more," he said.

Drive-thrus had cheaper start-up costs than city centre locations, over double the average spend of standard restaurants and a more even flow of custom.

"You have got the benefit of people coming up and taking their product away with them," Mr O'Leary added. Drive-thrus will be established in the Janelle Centre, Finglas, in Dublin, and in the Parkway Centre, Limerick, this summer.

This year the group will also open restaurants in the Omni Park Shopping Centre and the Nutgrove Shopping Centre, both in Dublin, and in Killarney and Dundalk.

The Burger King announcement follows a recent promotion by the group when over 47,000 portions of their new `King Fries' were handed out on January 29th.

This follows a successful launch in the US, where the Burger King corporation is based.