€69 million deal to create 120 research jobs

One of the world's foremost technology companies is to create 120 research and development posts in the largest investment of its type in Ireland.

Bell Labs, the R&D division of Lucent Technologies', in partnership with IDA Ireland and the Science Foundation of Ireland will create the research positions as part of a €69 million investment.

The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said announcement was significant not in monetary terms or the number of jobs but because one of the world's leading research companies was basing itself in the State.

She said Bell Labs was "one of the most renowned industrial research organisations in the world with a history of ground-breaking technology achievements, including the development of the transistor, mobile telephony and lasers - inventions that have, over recent decades transformed the way we live".

Bell Labs has 30,000 patents and 11 researchers who have won the Nobel Prize. "Bell Labs is granted two new patents every working day", said Ms Harney.

The funding will be primarily spent on wages and technology and will be split in two parts. A Bell Labs centre will be established in Blanchardstown at a cost of €43 million, with support from IDA Ireland. This centre could employ 40 research scientists and engineers.

A further €26 million will be spent by Science Foundation Ireland and Bell Labs on a centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain-Driven Research (CTVR) headquarters at Trinity College Dublin.

Eight other Universities and Institutes of Technology will be involved in this CTVR including UL, Maynooth, DIT, Sligo Institute of Technology, UCD, DCU, UCC and NMRC. Up to 80 researchers will work on CTVR programmes.

The centre will develop product engineering expertise and manufacturing and supply chain techniques, tools and technologies.

Bell Labs said the new Irish R&D centre could become the company's largest outside of its New Jersey base. Asked why the firm had chosen to locate in Ireland, Dr Jeff Jaffe, president of research and advanced technologies, Bell Labs said Ireland was an obvious choice.

He said industry was moving from vertically organised companies to horizontally linked organisations and that Ireland had grasped this concept. With modern communications technology Ireland was at the heart of Europe.

Dr Williamn Harris, director General of  SFI said: "This investment will act both to attract additional industrial research initiatives into Ireland and as a catalyst for the creation of future technology start-ups in Ireland.

"Importantly, it signals the quality and potential of the academic research culture in Ireland the skills and knowledge that Irish students will acquire through the CTVR."

Lucent employs some 500 people in Ireland and 5,000 across Europe.