There is a lot of money going into Irish communications providers at the moment. We are aware of a number of companies that are looking for tens of millions of investments.

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That's what Ireland needs now, early-stage investment. We have a lot of large companies that are not going to raise funds but are growing to exit [either through flotation or trade sale] in the next 12-24 months. But there's not a lot of companies looking to raise 10-20 million to go to the next stage.

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The figure is down somewhat from quarter one of 2005, but you have to remember there was a number of individual spectacular deals in the period including an 18 million investment in Irish Broadband. Overall we expect this year to be flat or even a bit better when compared to 2005.

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