McAfee, the US anti-computer virus software group, may expand its Irish operation beyond the 152 jobs already in the pipeline, according to chairman and chief executive George Samenuk. He was speaking at the opening yesterday of McAfee's new operations centre at East Gate, outside Cork.

Mr Samenuk said that the State's tax breaks and Cork's large number of highly-skilled and well-trained technology workers were deciding factors for the company's decision to locate there.

"We were not getting the tax advantages in Amsterdam any longer. We looked at Ireland and it was then between Dublin and Cork.

"We decided on Cork because it has a growing economy and workforce and saw that it would give us a great advantage in the coming years.

"There are experienced and talented people here and, after doing a survey with other companies, we decided on Cork."

Mr Samenuk said that the chances for expansion in the Cork centre were very high.

"If you look at the McAfee business, it is going to expand. We have had 36 per cent growth in the first quarter and 24 per cent in all of last year. We are in growth mode and hiring mode.

"Our number one concern is with security and only security. We were the first to offer security for 3G phones and we are about to launch our policy enforcer.

"This will allow your government or your company to exclude people who are not authorised to gain access to your systems. It will block rogue attackers," he added.