Dell Computers will unveil plans today to create up to 2,000 new jobs as part of a major expansion of its Irish operations.
The multi-million-pound announcement, details of which were approved by the Cabinet yesterday, is one of the largest in the history of the State. Limerick will be the main beneficiary.
Dell already employs 1,800 people at its Limerick plant and is understood to have agreed with the IDA to purchase at least part of the AST computer plant in the city where 430 jobs are under threat.
Negotiations on the number of new jobs to be created at Dell were continuing late last night but an IDA spokesman was hopeful that a final total of 2,000 would be agreed.
Most of the jobs will be in Limerick, Dell's European manufacturing headquarters, but a significant number will also be in Bray, Co Wicklow, where Dell's sales and customer support centre employs 430 people.
The jobs will be created over three to five years and recruitment will begin immediately. Dell ranks as the fifth-largest PC systems vendor in the world and the second largest in the US.
Its expansion plans - reported in The Irish Times yesterday - come just a month after the announcement that Seagate is to close its disk drive plant in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, with the loss of 1,400 jobs.
The extent of Dell's use of the AST plant, at the Plassey Technological Park, was one of the last issues being discussed by IDA officials and Dell executives yesterday.
A spokesman for the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, said the Government was anxious that many of the Seagate workers would also find work at the new facility.
Most of the employment will be for graduates and the IDA maintained there will be sufficient numbers of skilled workers available to work in the plant throughout the south-west region.
The IDA spokesman said last night: "This company is here to stay, mainly because they are becoming more and more successful at what they do and Ireland is benefiting from it."
Dell has chosen the Republic for the expansion, according to the IDA, on the basis of its skills base and favourable rates of corporation tax.
Dell's fortunes have risen on the back of its direct sales approach. Customers order PCs directly, cutting out the "middle man", and flexible manufacturing and inventory management techniques shave costs.
The net effect has been to win significant market share at the cost of more established companies. Dell's European revenue increased from $952 million in 1995 to $2,005 million last year.