WHICH WAS GOOD TIMING considering Motorola's shock announcement that it would close its Cork facility with the loss of more than 320 jobs - and that just a few days after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and enterprise minister Micheal Martin announced part of the National Development Plan in Cork, stressing it was jobs like Motorola's Ireland needs to keep.

INTEL ALSO CHIPPED INTO the Ireland, Inc goodwill programme by announcing a Euro30m digital health research centre at its Leixlip headquarters.

DELL BOY RETURNED to action to restore the wobbling PC manufacturer to balance. Founder Michael Dell anounced he would return to the chief executive role after the company saw its market share slip to rival HP. But on Friday Dell was hit with a new class-action lawsuit claiming it in"ated profits with secret payments of $1 billion a year from chip maker Intel.

THE FINANCE BILL was published last week by Brian Cowen, who under pressure from Brussels ended the tax-free status for stallion stud fee profits.

Winners included Shannon tourism businesses and BES schemes for recycling.