IDA IRELAND has secured an investment from a “major target”, with Indian IT services company HCL Technologies to establish a new software business in Dublin which will create 80 jobs over the next three years.

“HCL has been a major target for IDA since the establishment of our office in India,” said Barry O’Leary, chief executive of IDA Ireland. “This project is a strategic win for Ireland. HCL is one of the biggest brand names in the Indian IT sector and IDA is confident that this will be a catalyst for further projects from Indian multinational companies to establish operations in Ireland.”

HCL had global revenues last year of $6 billion (€4.4 billion) and it employs 85,000 staff in 31 countries.

The Dublin software centre will provide services to the firm’s clients in the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton met HCL executives as part of a recent trade mission to India.

“The real economic success story of Ireland in the mid to late 1990s was based in part on tapping into the global IT boom going on at that time,” said Mr Bruton following the announcement.

“If we are to get out of the crisis we’re in and create the jobs we so badly need, a key part of that will be to build on our established strengths and once again now take advantage of the rapid growth in the global IT industry – particularly coming from countries like India and China,” he added.

Despite the boom in India’s IT industry over the last 30 years, initially driven by its attraction as a location for low-cost outsourcing, the Republic has attracted relatively few investments from Indian technology firms.

HCL took over a call centre in Northern Ireland in 2002 from BT and has 4,500 employees across Europe.

Rajeev Sawhney, president of HCL Europe, cited multilingual skills and proximity to European customers as advantages the Dublin centre would offer.