Google plans to create more than 600 jobs in Dublin over the next two or three years as it expands its European HQ in Ireland.

The company has also signed a lease for a further 100,000 square feet of office space beside its current European HQ as it prepares to recruit a range of new staff including sales, engineering, legal, finance and HR.

The giant search outfit chose to expand its existing operation in Ireland due to the "quality of the Irish workforce", said a Google bigwig. There's also the matter of low rate of corporate tax and undisclosed assistance from Ireland's Investment and Development Agency (IDA).

"Following this investment, Google will become, in a very short period of time, one of the most substantial business support integration and development operations in Ireland," said the Trade minister in a statement.

"This decision yet again demonstrates that Ireland is by far and away the primary location for the digital media industry in Europe and second only to Silicon Valley in the US." ®

Related stories

• Dublin's Googleplex swells (15 November 2006)
• Eurovision Search contest: a search engine for Europe (20 January 2006)
• Google makes US brand top three (7 December 2005)
• Say hello to Google ant (29 November 2005)
• Bolloxed Irish surf Doogle (25 November 2005)
• Ireland gagging for affordable broadband (24 November 2005)
• BT Ireland confirms Cara buyout (3 November 2005)
• We're just getting revved up, Ballmer tells Irish (10 October 2005)
• Ireland unveils supercomputing centre (30 August 2005)
• Ireland withdraws grants for €1.6bn Intel fab (3 March 2005)