GOOGLEVIEW:WHEN GOOGLE founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin came to Dublin in October 2004 to formally open the internet company's European operations centre they were riding on the crest of a wave. Freshly minted as the tech world's latest billionaires following Google's initial public offering, the company was at the top of its game.

Built on the foundation of its search engine, which came from nowhere to be the dominant player in just four years, Google had built a profitable business on selling advertisements relevant to the theme of any particular search. This enabled it to expand into other areas but also made it a potent symbol for the resurgence of the internet post the dot.com implosion.

The company is no longer in the stellar growth phase it enjoyed in the early years of this decade and has started to attract criticism for being too powerful. Despite some speed bumps at the corporate level its Irish operations have flourished. Since last year Google Ireland has gone from 26th on our list to 12th and now has an annual turnover in excess of €3.3 billion.

According to John Herlihy, the director of online sales and operations who heads up the Irish division, what Google has set up in Dublin is something the internet giant could not replicate anywhere else. Currently it is supporting customers in 43 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa using 48 languages.

"Ireland is a fantastic place to do this because it is attractive for European people to come and work here," says Cork-born Herlihy. "You couldn't do this in Japan and serve the Chinese and Korean markets. To do it in Asia you would have to have five or six mini-centres for a variety of historical and cultural reasons."

Dublin initially was a site for Google to support customers from and troubleshoot their problems. Now it is involved in what Herlihy describes as "strong account management" and employs almost 1,600 staff - far in excess of what the company ever publicly committed to.

"We have 1,580 staff at the moment and we are still recruiting - we have 100 positions open," says Herlihy. "Provided we can get the right calibre of people I would see that continuing. I don't know how big Dublin could become but we don't have a cap on it."

One of the concerns for Herlihy is the rising cost of doing business and living in Dublin. About 1,200 of Google's Dublin staff come from overseas, largely because there is no way Google would be able to hire enough people from Ireland with the necessary language skills.

Dublin's image as a vibrant cosmopolitan city is something that has helped attract young technology workers to come here. But if the cost of living were to become an issue for them - or meant that Google had to pay even higher salaries (it is known to pay above market value to attract the best talent) that equation would change.

All staff who join Google in Europe also come to Dublin for a week's training to induct them into the company. Herlihy points out that's about 3,500 people who have been flown into Dublin and put up in hotels - adding to Google's contribution to the local economy.

Herlihy is impressed with the multilingual abilities of the young Europeans who work for him but thinks it is an area Ireland needs to focus on. "We have people who can speak seven or eight languages," says Herlihy. "We have Europeans who come here speaking three or four languages and they are capable of picking up a couple of more. The Irish education system really needs to teach languages more seriously - as a way of life."

The bulk of the Irish staff sell advertising on Google sites and provide support to those customers, who could be anyone from a major corporation to a sole trader.

"Before the internet if you were a ceramic artist in Italy you sold to people in a 20 kilometre radius from where you lived," says Herlihy. "Now if you have an online presence and you buy our ads, you can reach people in a multitude of countries."

According to Herlihy, a veteran of other Silicon Valley technology companies, Google does not have a traditional management style.

"We manage based on outputs not on inputs - by the result we want to achieve," says Herlihy. "We give a lot of autonomy to our people and encourage them to question things. If five people say something doesn't work we know we have a problem. We are continually changing our organisational structure based on customer demands."

Google also has a small engineering team based in Dublin. In keeping with the unique company structure, they don't specialise in any one area of Google's products but instead bid to work on internal projects that interest them. "We are in a continual state of flux," says Herlihy proudly. "We like to hire managers who have an ability to roll with the punches and can be very single-minded about what they want to achieve."

There has been much written about how Google uses Ireland to lower the taxes that it pays. In several regulatory filings the company pointed out how it was reducing its effective tax rate by channelling its profits through Ireland where the corporation tax rate is 12.5 per cent compared to the 35 per cent rate that applies in the US. In December 2006 the company negotiated a deal with the US Internal Revenue Service which limits the tax savings it makes through its Irish subsidiaries.

The company has a policy of not commenting in detail on its tax affairs, other than the information it includes in its statutory filings. But Herlihy is clear about what the Irish corporation tax rate, which is attracting the ire of some of the larger European economies, means to the company.

"The tax regime is attractive and must be protected but there are countries with a lower rate," says Herlihy. "The tax rate is a help but you have to make profits before low tax helps. It is the environment and the people that has brought us here and keeps us here."

He believes the Government has struck the right balance in how it deals with business. It is flexible, has limited bureaucracy and regulates business "with a light touch".

He's also extremely proud of the staff that have been attracted to work at Google's single largest facility outside Silicon Valley.

"We have operated well and I'm very proud of the team we have accumulated here," says Herlihy. "We still have people who joined us three or four years ago and they have built up a lot of experience doing this. I would be very disappointed if we don't continue to grow."