Sky Ireland will establish a call centre in Ireland this summer, in a move that will cost about €5 million a year.

The facility in Bishopstown, Co Cork, will employ 100 staff and will be managed by Abtran, an outsourcing services group.

The investment comprises salaries, training expenses and the cost of equipment.

Sky had 465,000 subscribers in Ireland at the end of 2006. To date, customer service activities for Ireland have been handled by two call centres in Scotland.

Sky said it was the right time to establish a dedicated Irish facility to handle sales and marketing activities, as well as queries on technical problems and programming.

The announcement comes just five days after the company was criticised by Channel 6 founder Pat Donnelly for selling cut-price advertising in the Irish market.

The Irish station was set up 12 months ago and has struggled to secure advertising revenue in the intervening period. Mr Donnelly said this was due, in part, to Sky selling cheap advertising.

This has been denied by Sky, which said its advertising rates were the fourth-highest in the Irish market, behind the terrestrial channels.

Sky began offering opt-out advertising in Ireland in 2000 and is thought to have earned about €100 million in revenue from it since then.

Irish advertisers can buy airtime on Sky One, Sky News, and Sky Sports One and Two.

Sky earns more than €250 million a year in revenue from the Irish market, with about 90 per cent of this from subscriptions.

Its Irish subscriber base is expected to exceed 500,000 by the close of its financial year at the end of June.