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SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea will finally open the doors to its Dublin store in the summer, creating up to 500 jobs.

As it launched a recruitment drive yesterday, the company said it would reveal the actual opening date tomorrow.

However, the final decision on when it opens will be down to the National Roads Authority (NRA). When planning permission was granted for the €110m store in Ballymun in June 2007, a condition was it could not open until upgrading of the Ballymun Interchange was complete.

While the company has said it is ready to open in a month, the NRA has repeatedly said it cannot open until the roadworks are finished.

An NRA spokeswoman said last night the works would be complete in the second half of this year, and that it had ongoing discussions with Ikea about the opening date.

Last night, independent TD Finian McGrath called on the Government to intervene to ensure that much-needed jobs are provided.

"I'm very critical of the National Roads Authority because Ikea is ready to open next month to create badly-needed jobs for the northside of Dublin," he said.

Congestion

"The NRA needs to be flexible. Traffic congestion is falling and the jobs are more important than people spending a few minutes in traffic.

"There's a role for the Minister for Transport and Tanaiste to get involved. We need more flexibility." Thousands of shoppers have travelled to the company's Belfast store, which reported earlier this year that 20pc of its business came from the Republic. The company has almost completed construction of its 30,000 sq m store on a 12.7 hectare site in the Ballymun Regeneration Zone.

The head of Ikea's global operations, Anders Dahlvig, has been critical of the delay in opening the new store saying it was unprecedented to have an outlet that is ready to open standing idle.

"We invested in all this infrastructure, we put millions of euro into this and then we have the frustration of having this long negotiation with the road authority," he said.

While many of its rivals have been forced to close down, Ikea has so far managed to weather the current recession reporting a 5pc growth in sales over the past year. Although this is down from its 15pc growth in 2007. Mr Dahlvig said he was not particularly worried about the gloomy economic outlook, saying that with other competitors going to the wall it allows Ikea to increase its market share.

He said the opening of the north Dublin store will create important employment opportunities at a time of widespread redundancies.

Paul Melia and Breda Heffernan