HP's vote of confidence may well induce Intel to follow suit. But we will need many similar boosts, writes JOHN COLLINS

ONE SWALLOW does not a summer make.

Despite this it is worth asking whether HP’s decision to invest €18 million in its Irish operations to support outsourcing contracts points to the first green shoots of economic recovery? Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Tánaiste Mary Coughlan were sure to mention the Government’s “smart economy” strategy as they attended yesterday’s HP announcement straight from the Cabinet meeting that approved IDA Ireland support for the project. Certainly the technology sector has not escaped the global recession but the Government decision to make it a cornerstone of our recovery looks to be already paying some dividends.

Ms Coughlan in her role as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment declined to name names but said her department and IDA Ireland have a “strong pipeline” of potential foreign investments. These are with existing firms as well as companies yet to establish a presence in Ireland.

HP Ireland managing director Martin Murphy says the new investment proves his theory that by embedding high-value research and development work in Ireland, significant job numbers can be created.

This is not the only major technology investment Ireland has attracted in the last year. Global players such as IBM, SAP, Trend Micro and EMC all announced job creation, while earlier this year Intel announced the establishment of a hub in Leixlip to co-ordinate its research activities across Europe. Investments by IDA-backed firms grew 14 per cent last year.

Chip-maker Intel is Ireland’s largest tech employer with almost 5,000 staff directly and indirectly employed at its Leixlip plant. The latest investment comes at a crunch time for those operations.

The corporation is faced with the decision of whether or not to make a multimillion dollar investment in its Irish Fab operations, an older factory on the site which needs to be refitted. Ireland will be just one of several locations competing for those dollars. Yesterday’s decision by HP, a major partner and customer of Intel, will not have gone unnoticed at its Californian headquarters.

The fact is that, while welcome, it will take many announcements like this every month to counteract the 300 redundancies a day currently being reported to Ms Coughlan’s department.