ADVANCE leaks to the media about major jobs projects are threatening the prospects of such investments going ahead, the chief executive of IDA Ireland, Mr Kieran McGowan, has warned.

He also said that such leaks undermine the credibility of the IDA which is charged with bringing overseas business to Ireland. "It calls into question ability to do business as an agency and a country, because of the confidentiality question," he said.

"There is a real risk that such projects could be lost," he added.

Mr McGowan cites two recent investment announcements - one involving Seagate Technology, which is to create 1,000 jobs in Cork, and the other involving Hewlett Packard, which is creating 1,000 jobs in excess of the 2,000 jobs it had already announced and is also considering a further 800 job expansion.

The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Richard Bruton, confirmed the 1,000 job project yesterday, which will involve an investment of £100 million. The investment is for the expansion of both the final assembly and intermediate assembly of printer pens for inkjet printers at the company's Leixlip facility. The company already employs 1,000 people there.

The investment will proceed immediately with the construction of a total of 375,000 square feet of new facilities, involving a construction cost of £48 million.

Meanwhile, Mr McGowan said advanced disclosure of a number of recent projects had caused problems for the management of these companies. Both had expressed concern about details being disclosed before the deals were finalised.

He said quite often the IDA is engaged in negotiations with executives of large multinationals regarding several possible projects. In many cases, they have not yet been discussed with those companies' boards. Advance leaks put these executives in very embarrassing positions," he said.

Mr McGowan also said that advance disclosures can also cause problems for US multinationals with the US stock exchange, because certain groups of investors may not already have been informed of such projects.

He also warned that the IDA's competitor agencies immediately chase the projects once they hear the company is in talks.

Mr McGowan stressed he was not blaming the media, nor would he say exactly who he felt was to blame. He said the IDA was good at keeping negotiations under wraps, but once the investment went outside for approval, it was prone to being leaked. He suggested that perhaps some mechanism should be examined for limiting the number of people who, have access to the information.

Sources close to Hewlett Packard said last night that the group is known for its integrity. "Such leaks are not helpful," they said, adding that "the company would expect that negotiations conducted in confidence would be respected as confidential."