A total of 360 jobs will be created over the next three years in Limerick and Offaly by an information technology company, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, announced in Limerick yesterday.
In an IDA-assisted project, Thomson NETg, part of the Chicago-based Thomson Corporation, will invest €12 million at its four-year-old Development and Innovation Centre in Limerick where it employs 340 people and in a new satellite operation in Birr, Co Offaly, where up to 80 of the new jobs will be located.
"One of the significant things about today's announcement is that for the first time in many, many years, a town like Birr is going to get what I would regard as a new-age industry," Ms Harney said.
The Progressive Democrats' election candidate for Laois-Offaly, Mr Tom Parlon, and the party's candidate in Limerick East, Cllr Tim O'Malley, were present at the announcement.
Thomson NETg is part of the Thomson Corporation, the world's largest provider of corporate and professional learning solutions, which had a turnover of $7.2 billion last year.
Ms Harney said there had been many "Black Fridays" when there were announcements of job losses but "today is a good day".
She said 95 per cent of the jobs would be for graduates, "the kind of jobs we are constantly trying to attract and sustain".
She said the IT sector was important for the future despite the global downturn last year.
"I think we've come through a difficult period extremely well from an employment point of view," she said.
Asked about the announcement last Friday of 230 job losses in the nearby Co Tipperary town of Nenagh in a pharmaceutical company, Aventis Pharma, she said the State could not guard against company restructuring decisions.
"I remain optimistic, I do not want to put it stronger than that, that we will be able to secure an alternative investment for that facility," the Tánaiste said.
The future industrial strategy had to be putting the infrastructure in place so that towns which had not done well were attractive for companies, she added.
"We have got to make those towns attractive for companies in the IT and bio-pharmaceutical sector.
"These are the kind of companies that have a long-term and successful future in Ireland," Ms Harney said.