The remarkable make-over of Connacht's industrial scene and the thousands of jobs generated by it goes back to the late 1960s and is centred strongly on Galway city.

Around that time, a number of large international companies picked out Galway as a strikingly attractive location in its own right, not only because of Ireland's recent accession to the European Economic Community. Digital was the most notable international corporation to recognise the advantages of Galway and establish a major facility there.

Then along came a number of big players such as Nortel, Thermo King and C.S. Baird whose very presence marked out Galway as a desirable place in which to invest. They also generated spin-offs creating yet more jobs through contract work in new Irish companies and provided a powerful boost to the economy in Galway and the west generally.

The industries that came were clean, modern and tuned into the developing sophisticated technologies of the future, free from the hazards of obsolescence. A young, confident workforce was on hand to fill the better jobs in these places, most of them graduates emerging from NUI Galway and the regional tech (now the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, with a second campus in Castlebar).

There are now 13,000 students attending these two institutions, providing a pool of skilled workers for new ventures in the age of information technology. Sligo's Institute of Technology is another source of high-grade employees.

Over the past eight years the number working directly in industrial jobs in Galway has doubled to 10,000. Barring international economic hiccups, that could grow close to 20,000 by the end of the decade.

A significant proportion of the jobs created throughout Connacht in recent years has been in the IT field and, if anything, the trend is gaining momentum. Galway's NUI and the Galway Mayo Technology Institute (GMIT), have increased their capacity for all types of IT courses.

The demand for IT personnel is so great that students are being offered jobs even before graduation. Young entrepreneurs have been setting up new companies with great regularity though this trend has been slowing down recently.

Many of these entrepreneurs developed their skills in the Galway Technology Centre set up in Mervue after Digital closed its hardware department in 1993.

Seen as a major catastrophe at the time, the Digital hardware closure turned out to be a blessing, spawning fresh vitality in seeking replacement industry.

From 1993 on, employment has gone consistently upwards in Galway. Thirty or 40 companies started up out of Digital's demise, with the ex-employees possessing the high skills needed to make a success of their new enterprises.

Not long after the departure of Digital, along came a new wave of major industries such as Boston Scientific which today employs 2,700 people, and APC which has a branch in Castlebar.

Industry in Galway city and county now turns over £2 billion a year and the value added multiple is around £700 million.

The turnover is larger than the revenue generated by tourism, a major economic force in the west, but tourism has the advantage of spreading its benefits across the more remote parts of Connacht and providing greatly needed wages in small communities.

Five years after the closure of its Galway hardware division, Digital was bought by Compaq, a merger that was the biggest ever take-over in the computer sector, costing £7 billion. The scale of Compaq's activities in the old Digital plant at Ballybrit in Galway city can be gauged by the work of its engineers in designing Europe's largest super-computer for the French Atomic Energy Commission as part of a $40 million contract.

This computer is seven times faster than any other in Europe and is being used to ensure the reliability and safety of the French nuclear stockpile. The 500 employees in Galway's Compaq operation almost equal the number employed by Digital when it closed.

Another of the early multi-national arrivals in Galway was the giant Canadian corporation Nortel, which also had a big influence in identifying the city as a preferred high-tech zone in Europe. Galway is now the well-established home of Nortel Networks and of an internationally recognised research and development facility. The Galway Nortel operation is multi-dimensional and employs more than 400 people, though 60 of them are facing redundancy due to a worldwide staff reduction by the corporation.

Closure of Digital caused the Galway Technology Centre (GTC) to be set up in February, 1994, and redundant Digital employees were among the first tenants of the centre. The GTC has quadrupled its size and some 32 projects have been initiated there since it opened.

Altogether, some 350 people have been employed in the various companies in the centre. Developed as a subsidiary of the chamber of commerce, the centre grew from its initial eight companies to double its size in five years. Outside Galway city, there has been reasonably good industrial development and the work of the Western Development Commission can be expected to help generate more growth if the Government commitment to it doesn't flag.

There are a number of industries already established across Connacht including Baxter in Castlebar and Swinford, and Abbot employing 600 and Saehan Media 400, both in Sligo.