A mother on the phone trying to explain the work of her professor son was the spark for an invention that could be used on future space missions.

A €46.4m software research facility launched at the University of Limerick yesterday will help more than 1,000 Irish companies develop and expand their products.

LERO, the Irish Software Engineering Centre based at the University of Limerick, has announced the appointment of Professor Mike Hinchey as co-director and Professor of Software Engineering at UL. He takes up his appointment on June 1.