Forty-six Irish companies now have offices in Australia, up from 19 in 2001, including information technology, telecoms, financial services software, elearning, engineering, agribusiness, manufacturing services and consumer products.

Irish IT company DataKraft is the latest success story after winning a major contract with the South Australian Department of Justice in Adelaide.

The Dublin firm won the contract through an Australian re-selling firm, Intec, which acted on behalf of the company at last month's ICT electronics fair in Hong Kong.

DataKraft's software will be used to help the attorney general's office with dataimporting, data-manipulation and extracting, and reporting requirements.

The company is the brainchild of chief executive, Jacques Lefebvre, who is delighted to have secured the Australia contract.

"The low level of maintenance was a contributing factor in the department selecting Intec's DataKraftbased solution. They now have a system that requires very little maintenance, with low development cost, ease of use and flexibility, " Lefebvre said.

"I wanted to develop professional database applications quickly that could be amended and extended without any coding or development."

DataKraft follows a number of Irish companies that have secured high-profile deals in recent months. Dermot Desmond's multi-million company, Daon, won a deal worth in excess of A$50m ( 30m) with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. This is the largestever contract won by an Irish software company in Australia.

Other Irish companies are also kicking goals in Australia across a broad range of industries, including:

Fineos, which supplies software for banks and insurance companies and is now in its fourth year of operation in Sydney and Melbourne;

Validsoft, which supplies authentication security for online banking, is working with Australia's top investment bank and recently announced a partnership with the country's biggest telecommunications company, Telstra.

First Ireland Spirits, which sells large quantities of cream liquor under the Feeney's brand through Woolworths across Australia.

Combilift, whose forklifts are sold at builders merchants including Bunnings Warehouse and Skillsoft, whose elearning customers in Australia include retailer Coles Myer and Allianz Australia These contracts were assisted by Enterprise Ireland and marketing adviser Clare Foley told the Sunday Tribune that she expected the number of Irish companies in Australia to increase rapidly in the next few years.

"It makes sense for Irish companies who want to trade in Australia and New Zealand to have offices here so they can access more distribution agents as a step-up to doing business with big Australian companies, " she said.

"Eighty per cent of all Irish companies in Australia are involved in the software business. I would expect there to be a big increase in the number of Irish companies with representation here in the coming years because after trading in Europe, Australia and New Zealand are new markets for Irish companies without language barriers.

"They can also use Australia as a springboard to target the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. China and Japan are very big markets for software companies but language barriers make trading difficult, as does competition from established competitors in those countries.

The reality, however, is that Irish companies will find it much easier to trade with Asian companies from Australia than they would from Ireland."

Last month, trade minister Michael Ahern visited Australia to promote the growing working partnership with Ireland. Exports by Irish companies to Australia are now worth in excess of A$1.2bn, with a 36% increase in the first quarter of 2006.

Ireland has a surplus in its overall trade with Australia with exports now running five times higher than imports.