The IDA has said it is confident of generating further new jobs in the coming year.
In its end of year statement, the IDA said it had created 9,200 jobs last year, a decrease of 2,000 on 2006.
However, the IDA's new Chief Executive, Barry O'Leary, said the agency was in a good position to win further job generating projects in the coming year.
The IDA says it had an excellent year in 2007, with €2.3bn invested in new projects.
Some of the big names who expanded in Ireland were Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline and Merrill Lynch.
There were also some significant job losses at companies such as Dell, which announced 100 voluntary lay-offs.
So in real terms the new jobs replaced the ones that were lost.
Overall the number of people working in companies backed by the IDA remained at 136,000.
Internationally there are fears of a recession in the US and the credit squeeze is making expansion more difficult for companies.
But the IDA's new boss was upbeat about prospects for 2008 and said the agency had a healthy pipeline of new projects.
