Cork students who feared their plans for a working holiday in the United States might have gone west seem to have gained a last minute reprieve.

SAYIT, a Cork-based travel agency, had earlier this year advertised a student summer work programme in the States which guaranteed jobs and accommodation in golf and country clubs around the US. Students paid an extra £100 on top of the standard fee for the J1 programme to be placed in the jobs. However, at the 11th hour, some of the golf and country clubs said they would not employ all of SAYIT's programme participants, as they wanted to pick and choose whom they would take on. Students preparing for exams were alarmed by the news, fearing their summer plans might be about to go up in smoke.

However, SAYIT says it has now arranged jobs for all programme participants. More than half of the participants will, after all, be taken on by the golf and country clubs, while alternative employment has been arranged for the other programme participants. Those who have been allocated alternative jobs will be refunded the £100 with their flight tickets "as a gesture of goodwill", according to the company's managing director, Michael Doorley.

Doorley says fewer than 10 students have cancelled their participation in the programme, and those have received a full refund.

The incoming president of Cork IT students' union, Ken Curtain, said that while students were taken aback by the initial news, the union had received no complaints about the new arrangements.