To understand what the technology boom has meant to Leixlip, Co Kildare, one need only take the short walk from the Intel plant on the Galway road down towards the town centre, reports Ruadhán MacCormaic
Half a mile along the sapling-lined route, with its pristine signposts, newly surfaced footpaths and recently upgraded lighting, the road crosses Louisa Bridge station, where, before 1989, trains didn't stop. Today, the ultra-modern station is one of the busiest points on the Dublin-Kildare commuter line.
Further on, past the big Rockingham and Ryevale housing estates but not as far as the Rye River Restoration Project, a placard stands outside the Catholic church. "Thanks to all who made this dream come true," it reads, referring to the new parish hall that opened last month, financed with a substantial contribution from Intel Ireland.
To local residents, the day in 1989 that Intel announced the decision to locate its European headquarters in Leixlip serves as a watershed. Intel's chips are used in about 80 per cent of the world's computers. Its arrival changed the complexion of the area irrevocably.
Since the closure in the early 1980s of the Irish Meat Packers plant, then Leixlip's single biggest employer, those who had stayed in the town worked mainly in hotels, pubs and small businesses concentrated in the old village. The population had surged during the 1970s, when Leixlip was the location of choice for first-time buyers drawn from the west of Ireland and south Dublin. Some commuted, but unemployment beckoned large numbers of those who stayed.
"The place is unrecognisable," says Gerry Leahy, a local property consultant. "In 1989, you could probably buy a three-bedroom house in Leixlip for £40,000. And demand was sluggish. This was barely a commuter town. It had a train station, but no trains. Commuting was a nightmare because there was no motorway either. It was very much a first-time buyers' area - houses were cheap."
Bernadette Murray first came to Leixlip 33 years ago. "We were among the first to move here", she says. "We moved into new houses. At that time there were only a few hundred people here, I'd say. It was really only the houses in the village. For a long time there was no development going on, it was pretty stagnant. And then Intel came along and that changed." Murray's son works with Hewlett Packard, on the site of the meat-processing plant, while her daughter has bought a house in one of the new estates.
With Intel came 4,000 jobs and rapid development. "Intel coming coincided with the new motorway link and the Lucan by-pass, and then Hewlett Packard came a few years after Intel," says Leahy. "So suddenly this side of west Dublin and north Kildare became a hi-tech centre. It made a phenomenal difference straight away, a huge difference in the demand for housing and rented accommodation. And not only in north Kildare and west Dublin, but it had a ripple effect, from Kinnegad to Edenderry and Tullamore."
The first influx was composed primarily of returned emigrants, says Leahy. "There was a huge amount of ex-pats. In the first tranche there was a lot of Intel staff from America and elsewhere who the company repatriated to get the project up and running. We probably had a more mixed community in the early 1990s than anywhere else in Dublin - plenty of French, German and Swedish. And it was all tech-led. A lot of them came initially on three-year contracts, set down roots and bought houses."
By and large, those who arrived in the early 1990s have stayed. When Leahy's agency advertises housing schemes, typically 15 per cent of applicants are non-nationals. A few doors down from Leahy's is Best Stores: For Afro-Caribbean Groceries and Cosmetics.
Leixlip residents seem universally positive about Intel's impact on the community. And that impact is evident everywhere. All local primary schools are equipped with computers and software donated by the company, which also offers a range of scholarships to third-level students. Improvements to public lighting, footpaths and assorted amenities, including a soon-to-be-opened youth centre and the second Leixlip interchange, are all attributed to "the plant", as it is referred to locally.
The company distributes a quarterly newsletter to all residents and periodically convenes a Community Advisory Panel to select suitable funding projects. Its Intel Involved programme invites employees to undertake volunteer work; staff repainted the church and school.
According to Mary Foley, Leixlip's town clerk, the company is "an excellent neighbour. I don't think it springs only from a desire to be on good terms with people. Yes, it's in their interest, but they have a genuine desire to support things, especially education."
Christian Schmelter, a hotelier and secretary of Leixlip Traders' Association, agrees. "They work very well with the business community; every November they hold the Intel Trade Fair, a sort of Christmas bazaar where local traders set up stands and the employees are invited in to do their Christmas shopping."
Approximately 30 per cent of Intel's employees live in Leixlip or the surrounding area. Among them is Lisa Harlow, who was one of the company's first employees in Ireland and now works as its community co-ordinator. "I like the place because of that country charm it still has; it's a lovely place to live in. My husband also works at Intel, and we've been living here for the past 10 years." Some of her colleagues, says Harlow, commute from Dublin, Bray, Drogheda and Mullingar every morning.
Intel's presence in Leixlip is such that the fate of the town is tightly intertwined with that of its colossal tenant. Memories of Digital and Gateway are easily called to mind in Leixlip, and there have been days when staff must have wondered whether they too could arrive for work one morning to find the gates locked. Understandable, then, that most responses to this week's €1.6 billion expansion announcement focus on the long-term commitment that it suggests.
"From our point of view," says Mary Foley, "the more staff we get here, the more long-term Intel's plans are to remain here. When Intel came, it was soon after Digital closed down in Galway . . . There was once a fear that Intel would be going the same way, particularly if the tax regime changed. But this plan reinforces their longevity."
By Thursday afternoon, 24 hours after Intel's announcement, Leahy Property Consultants on Main Street had logged 64 inquiries for houses in Leixlip, more than five times the typical figure for a normal day. For the same three-bedroom house that cost £40,000 in 1989, offers now start at €260,000.
"When you see an announcement like this," says Gerry Leahy, "and the quality of the jobs they're putting in there, it's amazing. It's complemented by Hewlett Packard, and then we have Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest bio-chemical plants in Europe, just up the road in Lucan. So you're in a real hi-tech hub here. It's terrific. Long may it last."