Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) is offering a four-year degree course in networking and software development, the first course of its kind in Ireland and the first to be funded by the Government's Skills Initiative Programme.

The course co-ordinator, Mr Dave Simpson, said that routers made by Cisco, the inter-networking solutions providers, were being used to teach network configuration. "We have a significant number of these products, which enable us to put together large networks across as many as 20 routers," he added.