EVEN before the most recent, spectacular series of job announcements, the IDA was celebrating more than the holiday season. For inward investment to the Republic, 1996 has been a bonanza year; a record 20,000 jobs promised, many of them well paid positions in the software and electronics sectors.

By comparison, Northern Ireland had a more mundane year, but still managed over 5,500 job announcements.

It started slowly for the IDA, with a mere 450 jobs generated in January. Up North, the IDB, had a better start to the year better with 816 new jobs at Adna, the hosiery manufacturer, in various locations around the North. But as the months rolled past, a different pattern began to emerge.

In February, Eastman Kodak started hiring 250 people for a compact disc manufacturing plant in Youghal, Co Cork. In April, Digital said it needed 225 workers for a computer technical support centre, and Alps Electric said it was hiring 250 for an automotive parts factory in Killarney.

Attention turned northward in March, when the Korean electronics giant Daewoo unveiled a £15 million project, with 330 jobs, for Co Antrim. The precision tool maker VG-1 also said it needed 230 workers in Belfast.

A month later, Seagate said it would hire 300 workers in Derry to make computer hard drives.

On May 1st, Oracle unveiled its plans for a telemarketing centre in Dublin, with 400 new jobs. A fortnight later, the computer maker Gateway 2000 said it would need a new, workforce of 1,200 for an expansion in Dublin that would also include telemarketing.

Two days later, EPC, the car parts maker, said it was opening a £21 million factory in Dundalk, and would need 300 workers to run it.

For May alone, encompassing several major investments and more than two dozen smaller announcements, the IDA lined up investment from abroad worth well over £125 million, and creating 4,211 new jobs.

By June, the telephone call centre business that the IDA has targeted so relentlessly for the past 18 months again bore fruit; IBM said it would hire 750 people for a new customer call centre in Dublin. In Cookstown, Co Tyrone, Copeland announced 300 jobs making, compressors.

Also, the North's IDB announced its biggest coup for the year; a £113 million investment and 1,533 jobs making power generators for FG Wilson in Larne, Belfast and Monkstown, Co Antrim.

In July, Hewlett Packard announced another expansion in its printer cartridge manufacturing business in Co Kildare; the £218 million investment will require 836 new employees.

In September, Seagate was back in the news - a new, £68 million plant making substrates in Limavady, Co Derry, needed workers.

During one week in October, the IDA was able to announce investments by 3Com and Stream, both in Dublin, worth a combined £80 million. The companies pledged to hire more than 1,000 new workers.

November brought another bumper crop - Dell came through with £20 million and a proposed 750 extra employees for Limerick, DSC Communications in Drogheda said it would invest £17 million and hire 475, and Fore Systems unveiled a plan for a plant in Swords with 210 jobs.

And just to round things off, the latest announcements for December will create over 4,000 jobs.

The agency's annual report, to be published in the second week of January, will detail employment for 1996, and is expected to better the 1995 total of over 12,000. Even taking into consideration several closures in the course of the year, it is likely to be IDA Ireland's best ever.

In 1996, the US proved by far the happiest hunting ground for the agency; 30 per cent of all greenfield investment manufacturing projects from the US into the European Union are won by Ireland.

Forty per cent of all of the IDA's projects come from 440 US companies. Some 175 German firms, 160 British companies and over 200 enterprises from elsewhere in Europe are also supported.

Almost half of the Republic's total manufacturing labour force - 95,000 workers are employed directly by an IDA Ireland sponsored company. According to the agency, at least 20 per cent of these firms have added functions to their Irish operations, such as research and development, customer support, technical development and sales and marketing responsibilities.