This year will be at least as good as last for overseas investment, generating at least 14,000 new jobs, IDA Ireland staff heard yesterday. The agency's annual conference, held in Dublin, set targets for the 12 months ahead and focused on deepening the roots of multinationals in the Republic, the impact of EMU and stress management.

Executives said the mood at the conference - which comes just before today's annual results' announcement - was buoyant. All 280 of the IDA's staff, including overseas workers, attended the gathering.

"All the indications are that 1998 will be a very good year," one source said. "The first quarter is usually quiet, but there are already signs that the first three months of this year will be extremely busy."

Several speakers reportedly pointed out that as many new jobs were being created in expansions of multinational companies already operating in Ireland as via green field investments. The IDA will focus much of its attention this year on consolidating its multinational base, and encouraging Irish executives to grow beyond the role of plant managers.

The conference also heard that, while the staff numbers had remained below 300 since the 1994 restructuring, the volume of work had more than doubled. Also, the pace of competition for investments had quickened, requiring staff to work faster and be more nimble in approach.

A specialist in stress management told the gathering this increase obviously placed enormous psychological and physical burdens on staff and warned them to be aware of the impact of such pressure on their personal lives and those of their families.

The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, asked the IDA to carry out a radical re-appraisal of business and industrial policies, preparing the Republic for the new millennium.

"We must ensure that our industrial policy is geared up for the challenges of the next century," she said. "This requires us to develop and refine the vision of where we are heading.

"We must have optimal structures and policy approaches in place to anticipate as best as we possibly can the emerging trends of the future. A strategic approach is required to position ourselves to maximum advantage," Ms Harney added.

She also called on the IDA to do more to ensure that the long-term unemployed got a better crack at the foreign investment jobs market, citing several new projects that reach out to this sector.

"More of these innovative approaches are needed and I am asking that the IDA and overseas companies develop further programmes along these lines," she said.