Cork received a jobs boost yesterday when Minister for Employment Micheál Martin announced that a US provider of information storage systems is set to expand its operation in the city and create 95 jobs over five years.

California-based Engenio Information Technologies, which has had a presence in Cork since 2000, will establish a global operations and supply chain management centre at a still-to-be-announced location in Cork city with the support of IDA Ireland.

Mr Martin said that he had met Engenio representatives during his visit to the United States in October and was now able to announce the establishment in Cork of such a vital part of the company's logistics operations.

"It is a significant addition to the data storage sector in Cork - a sector which is critically important to the future development of the IT industry here," Mr Martin said.

"Engenio will make a major contribution to the growth of a 'data storage cluster' in Cork."

Engenio develops and manufactures high-performance storage controllers, disk arrays and storage management software, which it supplies to customers such as IBM, StorageTek and Sun Microsystems.

The jobs announced yesterday will be for graduates and postgraduates.

Engenio's president and chief executive Thomas Georgens said the centre in Cork would be a strategic site for the company and would represent a significant expansion for the company in the Republic after the opening of a manufacturing and test site in Cork in 2000.

"Our experiences with the Irish workforce and knowing that we will be able to recruit the calibre of people we require for work of such a high-skilled nature makes Cork an excellent choice," said Mr Georgens.

"The Cork location also gives Engenio access to an excellent communication system with Europe, the Americas and Asia, with key customers and other storage-related companies," he said, adding that the emphasis on technology at University College Cork made "the location ideal for us".