According to IDA Ireland, foreign direct investment has not dried up but has slowed down significantly.

The agency, which looks after multinational investment, is now saying that it will do well if job creation runs at the same level as job losses this year.

IDA spokesman Mr Colm Donlon says this would mean there would be around 141,000 jobs in IDA firms, following the Forfβs employment report, which is to be completed in November.

However, the agency can give no indication of how it arrived at this figure. It can say that 6,500 jobs have been lost so far in the information and communications technology sector, but not how many jobs have been created. It also expects to create jobs in pharmaceutical and healthcare, but cannot say how many have been created to date. According to Mr Donlon, there is a census in November each year and there are only guesstimates until that point. However, he cannot reveal the guesstimates.

"All the divisional managers make an assessment of their own performance," he explains. But these are not put together to get totals, he says.

The Forfβs survey uses EU-wide Nace code figures but these do not translate to internal IDA figures, which remain unpublished. For example, according to Mr Donlon there should be some growth in back office or shared services this year. However, he cannot say how many were employed in this sector last year or by how many it will increase.

The agency does not release data on the value of the projects it is trying to attract, the only measurement is jobs creation.

And according to Mr Donlon, the jobs announcements on the website are not a good indicator. "Jobs announcements bear no relationship to jobs activity," he says. For example there are 5,000 jobs in the pipeline that are not ready to be announced.