Details have been announced of two projects which are expected to create almost 650 jobs in Cork city and county.
The country's second biggest insurer, Quinn Insurance, is to significantly expand its Irish business by setting up a new call centre at Little Island. This will cater for 500 jobs over the next four years.
Quinn Insurance is part of the Quinn Group, which last year took over Bupa Ireland, the health insurer based in Fermoy in north Cork.
The company has invested €25m in the new Little Island facility, which it says will provide it with the capacity to expand its business in Ireland and, in particular, in the UK.
Tánaiste Mary Coughlan described the move as a huge vote of confidence for the region.
Meanwhile, a company which manufactures devices for wireless internet access is to increase its workforce by 145 in Cork City, in an IDA-backed investment.
Option Wireless is a subsidiary of a Belgian company and has been in Cork for the past 10 years.
The company currently employs 300 people here and supplies customers like telecoms giants AT&T, Vodafone and Orange.
The announcements come on the same day that Heineken revealed that the Beamish and Crawford brewery in Cork will close with the loss of 120 jobs.
60 jobs at Experian under threat
Meanwhile, credit information firm Experian says it is to cut up to 300 jobs in the UK and Ireland before the end of March as part of a programme of cost-cutting.
Experian employs 60 people in Ireland and 3,800 in the UK, but a spokesman for the company said it was not possible to say where the cuts would take place. Experian provides credit and consumer information to businesses.
Workers have been told they will be offered professional outplacement services, and retraining as well as the chance to redeploy to other parts of the firm.
Experian announced last month it was extending a global cost-cutting programme with the aim of saving tens of millions of pounds.
