Technology firms create 120 posts

One hundred and twenty jobs will be created in Cork and Athlone following new investments by Siemens Business Services and US firm Alienware.

Siemens Business Services, which provides technology services to companies in the Republic and abroad from a base in Cork, is recruiting an extra 40 people.

The firm has already recently recruited 20 staff to work in its business services division in a variety of roles including staffing is help desk and in management.

The new jobs have resulted from an expansion of the division's outsourced IT help desk in Cork, which provides support for customers of many global firms.

Mr Derek Wilson, managing director of Siemens Business Services, said the jobs would be in the skilled end of the IT services market and represented an important achievement for the company.

Overall employment at the Siemens Irish operations now stands at about 850 people following some redundancies in other divisions in recent years.

Meanwhile, Alienware, a firm which makes specialist computer equipment for the gaming and graphics industry, will expand its existing European operations office in Athlone.

The Florida-based company already employs 20 people at its European operations office at an industrial estate in Athlone. It will now take on an extra 60 staff to work in the telesales and technical support areas. The jobs will be created over the next five years as Alienware expands its business in the European region.

The two jobs announcements for Cork and Athlone follow eBay's decision to set up a massive operation in Dublin employing about 800 people.

However, this positive news follows a difficult few weeks during which the technology firm 3Com said it would shut its plant in Dublin with the loss of about 650 jobs.

Meanwhile, there was a jobs blow for west Belfast last night when a US-owned technology company shut its plant in the city.

CCC Technologies told its 30 staff to go home and that the plant was closing with immediate effect.

The company, on the Springbank Industrial Estate in Poleglass, produced telecommunications switching systems and specialised cabling.

CCC made no immediate comment, but the closure was confirmed by Invest Northern Ireland, the jobs creation body.

Invest NI's predecessor, the Industrial Development Board, provided £1.6 million (€2.3 million) in grants and capital to secure the opening of the plant in the unemployment black spot in 1996. The company promised to create 75 jobs and at its peak employed more than 100, but during the global technology downturn the numbers slumped to the final 30.

Local Sinn Féin councillor Mr Michael Ferguson hit out at Invest NI and the Industrial Development Board which, he said, had a policy of constantly seeking to fund foreign inward investment to the detriment of local indigenous industries.

Mr Ferguson said: "It is my belief that time and again Invest NI and its predecessor the IDB have misused public monies. Time and again companies open with a fanfare of publicity only to fold one or two years later, having lifted the grant aid and only created a fraction of the jobs promised."