Over 700 new jobs are envisaged for Mullingar and Cork through two new tele-service projects being negotiated by IDA Ireland. The projects are both at an advanced stage of negotiation and may be confirmed within the next two months. It is understood that the Mullingar project is a major one, involving the American medical claims processor, Oxford Health Plans. The project will involve about 500 new jobs, mainly in the data processing area, and will be Oxford's first venture outside the United States.

The American company claims to be a world leader in the area of medical claims processing, and has two centres in the US employing 1,000 people. The centres scan medical claims into an automated system where they are independently assessed to determine the eligibility of the claim.

Oxford is based in Conneticut and provides health benefit plans to 1.9 million members in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Conneticut and New Hampshire. It had turnover of $3 billion last year, and has had average sales growth of 111 per cent a year over the previous five years. Oxford, which is quoted on the NASDAQ market, had after-tax earnings of $99 million last year compared to $52 million the previous year.

If the Mullingar project does go ahead, it will be a major breakthrough for IDA Ireland, as it will be the first tele-service project of this scale to locate outside a major urban centre.

Availability of labour has meant that most projects of this type have located in the greater Dublin area. A spokesman for IDA Ireland would make no comment on the negotiations.

The second project is at a less advanced stage. A British company, which is the third-biggest third-party tele-service organisations in Europe, is planning a 200job centre which will handle customer services for client companies who prefer to out-source tele-service requirements rather than set up a company-owned centre. It is understood that foreign language skills will be the main requirement for employees in the Cork centre.

If these projects are brought to Mullingar and Cork, it will reinforce Ireland as a world centre for tele-service projects. Sources have emphasised, however, that the projects have not been finalised and that Ireland is competing with other locations, particularly Holland, for projects of this type.

Tele-service projects have been a huge jobs growth area for IDA Ireland in recent years, with a series of household-name multinationals setting up centres, mainly in Dublin.

Multinationals who have set up customer call centres and other tele-service projects include computer groups like Dell, Gateway 2000, Compaq, Digital, Oracle and IBM, while service companies as diverse as American Airlines, Hertz, UPS, Best Western Hotels, AOL Bertelsman, as well as Ryanair, have set up centres.

Most of these projects have been set up in the greater Dublin area, and it will be a major breakthrough if sufficient skilled people are available to staff the Oxford Health Plans centre planned for Mullingar and the second, as yet unnamed project, in Cork.