"Ultimately the commercial market will emerge as the largest market, " he said. Daon specialises in collating and managing biometric data such as fingerprint images to support security initiatives like the US's Registered Traveller Programme. Any Irish tourists passing through the airport in Orlando, Florida, recently will already have had their fingerprints and information collected and analysed by Daon.

Government-backed initiatives to strengthen security following the 2001 terrorist attacks have helped the biometrics industry grow rapidly over the last five years. In 2001, worldwide spending on biometric technology stood at just $119m, according to a report by technology consultants IDC.

IDC notes that the industry has shown compound growth of 50% per year since then, however, and expects spending to break the $1bn ( 790m) barrier this year. The International Biometric Group, meanwhile, an international organisation representing many of the industry's leading firms, is even more upbeat about future prospects, forecasting a global spend of over 3.6bn by 2008.

"I can't remember the last time we've had world leaders, presidents, prime ministers speak [so often] about technology. It's that important to national security, " said Grissen. Grissen likewise expects industry revenues to continue growing at a rapid pace as companies begin to recognise that the technology in use at borders and international ports also has its uses in the private sector.

In its quest to take advantage of that trend, Daon has focused on a tightlydefined niche. It has developed software to manage biometric data and perform functions such as rapidly checking fingerprints to confirm identity, match against files of known offenders and to store information such as fingerprints and iris scans. It has deliberately shied away from producing hardware such as face or iris scanners, where the market is cornered by large international hardware vendors.

Instead, Daon has tried to get in on the ground floor with several of the pilot biometric security schemes run by American airports, focusing its efforts on securing technology partnerships with the major IT systems integrators. Unisys, for instance, which led three of the successful consortia bidding for the original five security programmes under the US Traveller Programme, has selected Daon as one of its partners.

That partnership has begun to yield results outside the US. In recent weeks, Unisys won a $50m contract to supply biometric software and services, including Daon's, to the Australian government to enhance its border security. Grissen said there are more projects in the pipeline. "I would expect shortly that we would see some other major projects around the world being announced".

Daon's return from these projects is unclear. Grissen refused to discuss its share of the revenue or its overall sales and he said the company had "no comment" on either the level of investment Desmond had committed to date or whether Daon was profitable. He said, however, that the company was experiencing dramatic growth and was on the recruitment trail to staff its main offices in Dublin and Washington as well as new locations in Australia and the Middle East, where the company is chasing growth in emerging markets.