US telecoms giant may invest in Ireland

Verizon, the US telecommunications giant, is to consider Ireland as a European location for one of its multimillion-dollar customer billing centres.

Mr Paul Crotty, New York president of Verizon, said the group, formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE, was keen to explore investment opportunities in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Mr Crotty, who visited the North for the first time last week as a member of the New York Economic Development Corporation's trade mission, said the group was considering locating some of its administration functions in Europe.

"Ireland is a good entry point into Europe and we see that there may be potential for us to locate one of our billing or Telenetworking centres North or South," Mr Crotty said.

"People in Ireland are great communicators, we operate Tele-networking and billing centres all over the United States but we recognise that the work could be easily done from Ireland."

Verizon Communications is one of the world's leading providers of high-growth communications services. It is a Fortune 10 company, which had revenues of $65 billion (#76.52 billion) last year, and has a presence in 44 countries.