IBM IS to create 100 new jobs in an expansion of its Irish software labs in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

The company has already begun recruiting for the positions and expects to have as many as 50 per cent of the vacancies filled before the end of the year.

The jobs require skilled software developers and the roles will involve working on projects such as cloud computing collaboration software for business customers, as well as IT systems management tools and data warehouse software with analysis features.

IBM is investing €25 million over three years in the latest expansion with the support of IDA Ireland.

It currently has about 500 staff in its software labs between the three sites and this will expand to 600. In all, IBM employs close to 4,000 staff in the Republic, making it one of the largest multinational technology companies here.

The move comes just months after IBM moved its high-end server manufacturing from its Dublin operation to Singapore with the loss of 120 jobs.

However, the Irish software lab – one of 80 locations worldwide – has earned an important position within the company, said Dennis King, the US firm’s vice-president for advanced collaboration development.

“There are departments in the lab here today that are associated with every division or brand that we have in the software field,” he said.

“The Ireland lab is now part of the worldwide family of software group labs in IBM and you don’t start one of those lightly,” said Mr King. “It’s a long-term investment and once you start one of them it’s for the long haul.”

Mr King said the decision to invest in Ireland was “purely merit-based” and that Irish staff had a track record of delivering projects.

“The organisation has become integrated into the fabric of how IBM builds software,” said Mr King.

“A lab doesn’t own one thing; it doesn’t have a speciality. It’s part of the global community. When you have solutions and products you break them down into subsystems or components, and then you operate in a globally integrated engineering environment.”

Mr King added that he was satisfied with the quality of skilled graduates available from Irish universities. “It’s very important to have the skillbase that’s going to be able to deal with the complex problems that we solve through technology,” he said.

“We are building on the success of what we have here, by getting these extra responsibilities, these extra missions, in these key areas”, said Michael Daly, general manager of IBM Ireland.

“It’s based on the fact that we’ve been doing this kind of work for a number of years successfully.”

Barry O’Leary, chief executive of IDA Ireland, welcomed the jobs announcement, calling IBM “one of the most strategically important multinationals” in Ireland.

Mr O’Leary added that four of the world’s leading ICT companies have announced significant investment in Ireland already this year.