The Irish Times website, relaunched last year, offers syndicated streaming video from Reuters TV, but as of yet does not offer locally-produced content.

While the content would have "some overlap" with existing print edition and website, "the service will be driven forward by dedicated staff" to complement the print edition, editor Noel Doran said.

The move follows recent shakeups at newspapers in Britain over their online operations.

A radical restructuring of newsgathering at the Daily Telegraph, for example, has cause some friction between management and the Telegraph's existing journalists.

"We won't be quite as radical as the Daily Telegraph, " Dawson said. "All areas of the paper will be contributing online, from news to sport to religious matters."

The video service has been under trial since 26 September of last yea.

The Irish News declined to release any specific figures about how many people had viewed the content online. The paper's website recieved 2.2 million page impressions per month in the first half of 2006, up 30% over the previous year, according to Doran.

Advertisers had not yet been secured for the video service. Doran said that would change over the next few months as the commercial potential of the service becomes more clear.