IRELAND'S LEGIONS of texters will be able to put their thumbs to good use and help disaster relief in China's Sichuan province and in Burma, using a new mobile-phone-based donation initiative operated by Irish mobile marketing group Púca.

Using TXT-AID, mobile phone users send the keyword AID to 57500 to make an instant € 2.50 donation to four charities - Concern, Trócaire, Red Cross and Oxfam - all of whom are helping relief efforts in earthquake-hit China and in Burma, which was blasted by Cyclone Nargis

The initiative is being supported by all of Ireland's mobile network operators: Vodafone, O2, Meteor and 3, as well as Tesco Mobile.

Púca chief executive Eamon Hession said TXT-AID is the first occasion here where all mobile operators, the Revenue Commissioners, Púca and the industry regulator Regtel have come together to waive fees, costs and VAT, to ensure that all the money raised goes to the relief effort.

Similar campaigns in other countries after the Asian tsunami in 2005 were a huge success - Spain raised €6 million in just two days, although the service was not available in Ireland then.

"As we're a nation of texters this could really work as a highly efficient mechanism of directing funds to charities in a speedy manner by using people's mobile bills to make an instant donation by SMS," said Mr Hession.

Púca has offices in China and Mr Hession was inspired by his staff in the country.

"Jimmy Poon, our MD in China, told me last Thursday they had done a whip-around at our office in Beijing that they were going to donate to the relief efforts.

" I thought that we could possibly even go one better in Dublin and try and do something to raise even more money," said Mr Hession.

The initiative was welcomed by John Roycroft, secretary general of the Irish Red Cross.

The campaign runs until June 16th.