Dublin selected for new Facebook HQ

The company revealed on Thursday that the new Dublin office would house both technical and sales operations for the company's operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In choosing Dublin as its headquarters, Facebook cited the city's large local talent pool as a major factor.

"As we grow and strive to make Facebook into a place for people around the world to connect and share information, we need local operations to better advance our efforts," said chief operating officer Sharyl Sandberg.

"The talent pool in Dublin is world-class and recruiting local talent will help us better understand the needs of local users and the regional dynamics that, in turn, can give us better insight into what features matter most."

The deal will make Facebook the second tech giant to select Dublin as the spot for a major new computing centre. In March, IBM selected the city to host one of several new cloud computing installations Big Blue is rolling out world wide.

"As a growing global company, this is an exciting investment for our country to host the leader in social networking," said Tanáiste and Minister for enterprise trade and employment Mary Coughlan.

"Facebook has fast become a worldwide name and it is a terrific endorsement that Ireland can satisfy the needs of such highly innovative and technologically advanced companies as they make critical investments."