Irish industry has a Christmas message for the thousands of emigrants returning for the festive season.

Expatriates who fled the economic depression of the 1980s and early 1990s will be greeted by a concerted campaign to get them to return to Ireland and share in the benefits of economic buoyancy. Engineering and science graduates and those with experience in the electronics sector are particularly in demand.

But recruitment agencies differ as to whether Christmas is really the best time to target highly-qualified Irish people abroad who are now much sought after by companies at home.

Some believe the prevailing party atmosphere makes the holiday season the wrong time to try to tempt foreign-based workers into making such a major career decision. "If they're serious about returning they'll have sent their CVs and arranged interviews before they arrive," said one recruitment company boss.

But others believe there is no better opportunity to make a direct appeal to the tens of thousands of Irish workers who'll be returning for a Christmas holiday.

"We'll be doing a major campaign including television and newspaper advertising," said Mr Adrian McGennis, group manager of the Marlborough Group.

Marlborough had 1,500 job applications during the Christmas period last year and expects an even higher volume of business this season.

But persuading ex-pats to return home involves much more than telling them jobs are available. With pay rates in much of Europe still higher than here, Mr McGennis said highly-skilled Irish workers abroad are choosy about what jobs they'll come back for.

"They have a good idea what the market is like. They are familiar with the buoyancy of the market and they're not going to jump at the first thing they see."

It's that sophistication in the marketplace which makes Mr Colman Collins, joint managing director of Collins McNicholas, doubtful of the efficacy of Christmas advertising campaigns directed at returning emigrants.

He believes "high calibre" job applicants in particular will have done their homework in advance and dispatched their CVs before coming home. "People are also in a kind of more relaxed mood over the period and they're not really seriously pursuing job opportunities."

Mr Collins's view was echoed by another agency executive, who didn't wish to be named. "You arrange to meet people at this time of the year and they don't turn up. There's too much of a party atmosphere," she said.

However, agencies agree that serious business will be done at the two-day recruitment fair in Jury's Hotel in Dublin at the end of the month, which is aimed at returning emigrants.

The event is organised by the High Skills Pool, a Dublin-based agency set up to facilitate foreign-based Irish graduates seeking to return home. Up to 5,000 jobseekers, based at home and abroad, are expected to visit the fair on December 29th and 30th.

Most of those returning are coming back to high-tech jobs in the electronics and IT sectors, according to the High Skills Pool's managing director, Ms Caroline Lacey.

However, according to another agency boss, Mr Sean Finnegan of Richmond Recruitment, "Ireland is a window of opportunity in every aspect of recruitment".