Spirit, a subsidiary of the European Interoute telecommunications group, is to create 120 jobs over three months as part of a multi-million pound expansion in Northern Ireland and Dublin.

The telecoms operator, which has 75,000 residential customers in the Republic, is investing more than £1 million sterling in a green field operation in Northern Ireland which will target residential customers.

The Northern Irish operation will be based in Belfast and will employ some 64 staff in marketing, sales and administration activities. It will be set up as an autonomous business unit but will be run from the Dublin headquarters for at least six months. The remaining 56 jobs will be based at Spirit's call centre in Dublin. These will include operators to handle the residential phone business and customer service personnel for Spirit's new mobile phone product which will be launched later this month.

Chief executive of Spirit, Mr David Ryan, said the company would compete for customers in Northern Ireland against established operators such as British Telecom and NTL. A telecoms road link between Dublin and Belfast would be constructed to offer closed circuit point-to-point access to customers, he added.

Mr Ryan said the move into the Northern Irish market would offer a valuable marketing opportunity. It would also enable the company to utilise carrier pre-select technology - a technology which enables customers to choose to use telecoms operators without having extra equipment installed in their homes - which is likely to be sanctioned by UK regulator, Oftel, shortly.

The Spirit expansion follows the appointment of Mr David Ryan as managing director of the European Interoute Telecommunications Group.

Mr Ryan, who founded Spirit Telecom in 1998, recently sold his share to the Swiss owned Interoute Group for an undisclosed figure.