Sixty per cent of the 17,000 people who expressed an interest in working in Ireland at the London `EXPO Ireland' exhibition last weekend were British. The exhibition, which is sponsored annually by the Irish Post newspaper, is traditionally dominated by tourism, fashion and cultural exports. However this year it was the stands taken by 50 companies looking for recruits which attracted the most attention.

The attraction of Ireland as a work location was not just a spur-of-the-moment thing. According to the head of publicity at FAS, Mr Greg Craig, half of the visitors who arrived at his agency's stand with prepared CVs, were British.

Even if all 17,000 people interested in working in Ireland opt for the vacancies on offer, it would not be enough to fill the 20,000 on offer. Companies as varied as Dell, Lufthansa-Airmotive, the National Car Testing Centre and Supermac were seeking recruits.

Supermac, the Galway-based fast-food chain which is planning to open 10 new branches, was offering job applicants £4.40p an hour, the proposed new national minimum wage. It was hoping to recruit around 200.

At the other end of the scale was Xerox, which is seeking 2,500 people to work across a range of occupations in its Dundalk and Blanchardstown locations.

Some of the demand for jobs is driven by competition for skilled workers in Ireland. Lufthansa-Airmotive has already lost a significant number of mechanics to the National Car Testing Centre. Both firms had stands in London.

While it will be some time before it is clear how many of the 17,000 job queries translate into recruits, FAS says that many of the companies are interested in running further jobs fairs in British cities with strong Irish links such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow.

FAS itself organised involvement in EXPO Ireland as part of its current EU-wide campaign to attract 10,000 workers to jobs in Ireland.