The Irish-American Toole family are key players in IBM's decision on a new European hub, writes Jamie Smyth

IBM's technology campus at Mulhuddart is being considered as a potential European hub for the firm's new engineering and technology services unit, which was set up last year. Its central location between Europe and the US, the strength of its existing operations and the high calibre of Irish staff are all factors that put the Mulhuddart site high up on the list, according to the general manager of the new IBM technology unit.

Mr Patrick Toole Jnr - who has visited the flagship IBM site on several visits to the Republic - says he is currently working on the overall plan for Europe and a decision will be made later this year.

IBM's engineering and technology services division employs about 1,000 people in the US and was set up last July to bring together IBM's know-how in IT services and its advanced technology. The unit offers customers design and technology consulting services that help firms bring their products to market quicker than they could without IBM's technological input, says Mr Toole.

The high-technology nature of the work in which the new IBM division is engaged would make a decision by the firm to bring the unit to the Republic a significant win for IDA Ireland, which has set out its stall in the past two years to attract high-value technology investment.

Mr Toole - who can trace his family back to the Republic - is unlikely to allow sentimentality to cloud his decision on the location of the European unit. But those hoping for a decision in Ireland's favour on the multimillion dollar investment can count on support close to Mr Toole - from his father, Mr Patrick Toole Snr.

"My father is very enthusiastic about Ireland and is lobbying hard on this one," admits Mr Toole Jnr, who was in Dublin last August celebrating his father's 65th birthday.

No wonder. Mr Toole Snr was the IBM executive who chose the Republic as the location for IBM's multimillion-dollar technology campus in 1995/96 in the face of competition from Eastern Europe, China and Mexico, and he ranks the campus as one of the best investments IBM ever made.

Speaking on the phone from the US, Mr Toole Snr describes his memories of developing the 100-acre Mulhuddart site in 1996.

"It was a very successful project. We had it up and running in just six months and were able to get the qualified staff we needed. The key ingredient was skills. Ireland has one of the best education systems in the world ... and at the time there was unemployment of about 12 per cent. So there was a lot of highly qualified people to recruit."

Another ingredient Mr Toole Snr considered when making Mulhuddart IBM's choice for the campus was flexibility. "Building a single-purpose facility for, say PCs or hard disks, I personally felt was risky for both the firm and the country," he says. "The rapid change in the industry means people must be flexible and change jobs. Our philosophy and strategy coincided with the Irish, and it has turned out successful."

Since IBM's Mulhuddart campus got up and running in 1997, hundreds of jobs have changed but there have been no redundancies. That is good for IBM and the people there, he says.

More than 3,000 IBM Ireland staff now work at Mulhuddart in a range of functions from software development to manufacturing. Recently the firm upgraded its technical support centre to become a "dotcom centre" and IBM has also located a multimillion-dollar e-commerce supplier portal at the campus.

Mr Toole Snr, whose grandfather came from Wicklow, believes the flexibility shown by the Irish Government in its dealings with IBM makes the Republic a very attractive location for investment.

"From the time we chose Ireland as the location for the technology campus, it took just six months to get the plant up and running. In some other countries, it can take six months just to get the first licence to operate," he says.

Since retiring from day-to-day executive duties with IBM, Mr Toole Snr has kept strong ties with the Republic. Between 1999 and 2001 he worked as an adviser to the Government on its €600 million technology research initiative Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), and he will continue to make himself available to the Government on a voluntary capacity for a few years.

"The SFI project was interesting because it was a study to decide what Ireland should be investing in in the future ... We recommended a number of areas, including nanotechnology," he says. "I'm encouraged Ireland is not resting on its laurels and the so-called Celtic Tiger is moving to re-emerge."

Mr Toole Snr is a veteran of the technology industry and spent more than 35 years working with IBM from the early 1960s. He pinpoints just a few major projects as career highlights.

"I was on the original team that developed the '360' - the first large integrated computer system in the 1960s. I was in charge of a group of engineers who were spearheading this development which turned out to be an earth-changing moment. Up until then computers didn't talk to one another and we had to rewrite all IBM applications and software to enable them to do this."

Mr Toole Snr also helped develop the IBM strategy to reinvigorate the company in the early 1990s under former IBM chief, Mr Lou Gerstner. His contribution was to initiate and grow IBM's retail technology business from zero to billions in several years.

A decade later and Mr Patrick Toole Jnr is following in his father's footsteps and now has the task of mastering the global design services business for IBM.

"We have four basic offerings, ranging from developing certain technology systems for firms to providing technology consultancy services, and enabling firms to completely outsource their design business. This would of course be a very deep relationship," he says.

For example, IBM could develop chipsets for firms within six to 14 months, adds Mr Toole.

Despite launching in the midst of one of the longest technology recessions in history, Mr Toole believes the new division can claim business for IBM.

Whether Mulhuddart will benefit from further investment following another decision made by the Toole family will become clearer later this year.