The arrival of Cisco Systems represents a major coup for IDA Ireland and for the Government. Granted, the company already had a presence in Dublin, but it is nothing to compare with the prospect of up to 3,000 jobs and a multi-million-pound investment.

Cisco is the world's biggest public company, even bigger than Microsoft. More importantly, its arrival here on such a large scale fills in a gap in the Republic's glittering array of top technology firms. Quite simply, Cisco provides the Internet with its heart, the networking equipment that allows the system to operate. In an e-business world, where the Net will provide the infrastructure, Cisco and its peers will become ever more important.

With the Government showing it is becoming serious about e-commerce through recent legislative initiatives, the arrival of Cisco can only raise the State's international profile in this key area. Already 25 per cent of the wealth in the State is calculated to come primarily from the technology sector.

For the State, the challenge now is to produce enough suitably qualified individuals to fill the posts coming on-stream at Cisco, IBM and Intel - not to mention the other labour-hungry smaller players - or attract them from abroad.