Limerick will receive news of new jobs in the next few weeks, IDA Ireland chief executive Mr Seán Dorgan said yesterday.

The city has been seen as losing out to others areas and has received no IDA-sponsored jobs since May 2002.

Speaking at the opening of a new €5 million extension to Olympus Diagnostica Ireland's plant in Co Clare, Mr Dorgan said: "There will be some announcements in the next few weeks. I don't want to overstate it, but there will be worthwhile additions to the existing base in Limerick."

Mr Dorgan said the IDA has been "selling Limerick hard". He said: "There have certainly been a few near misses and there were ones we were convinced were landing that did not happen."

He added: "What has been happening in the Mid-West is very much happening in the rest of Ireland: the numbers employed by multinationals in Ireland as a whole have dropped a little, but there has been a fantastic job-quality change in the numbers employed."

In the last three years, €36 million had been invested in 18 separate R&D facilities in the Mid-West, he said. Yesterday's opening was a case in point. The €5 million unit opened at the Irish subsidiary of Japan's Olympus Corporation yesterday will now become the group's worldwide centre for research, development, pilot scaling-up, and manufacturing of a new range of immunoassay reagents.

The facility close to O'Callaghan Mills in Clare is already the corporation's sole centre for developing and producing clinical chemistry reagents, substances used in hospital tests on blood and urine. These reagents are used with Olympus equipment produced in Japan.

The immunoassay reagents, which are more difficult to develop, will initially be used in thyroid, fertility, cardiac and tumour testing.

The 3,000 square metre extension to the existing 6,000 square metre facility was officially opened by Mr Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, president of Olympus Corporation, and Dr Werner Teuffel, executive managing director of Olympus Europa. The Japanese ambassador to Ireland, Mr Takeshi Kagami also attended.

"This €5 million extension to this Olympus state-of-the-art facility positions both it and Co Clare at the cutting edge of a high value-added industry with great prospects for the future," Mr Dorgan said.

A further €5 million will be spent on the R&D programme over the next few years, according to Mr Dorgan.

Around 22 additional researchers are to be involved, leading to an overall R&D team of 66. Already, 15 have been recruited. Olympus employs 230 at the Irish plant, and is estimated to contribute €10 million a year to the local economy.

Olympus Diagnostica Ireland chief executive Mr Piers Devereux said the company was the largest employer in east Clare.

Olympus is one of the world's leading manufacturers of opto-digital products for business, leisure, medicine, science and industry. It employs almost 29,000 people worldwide and had net sales of 633.6 billion yen (€4.78 billion) last year.