Jones was high performance director at UK Athletics from 1997 to 2004, including the Athens Olympics where Britain finished third in the medals table behind the United States and Russia, before retiring from the organisation in 2005 after 24 years.

During his time with UK Athletics, Jones was coach to seven Olympic teams and head coach for the 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

Jones’ new position will see him have overall responsibility for Ireland’s international athletes.

Jones, a contributor to insidethegames, will work closely with both the athletes and their personal coaches to enhance and maximise their performances.

"Max joins us with a wealth of experience and ability from his time with UK Athletics and we are very excited about what he can bring to our existing Irish athletes and those athletes of the future," said Athletics Ireland chief executive Brendan Hackett.

"He will be instrumental in developing our high-performance programme and will also be looking into developing our coaching programme as we focus on the 2012 Olympics in London."

Former world champion Sonia O'Sullivan said: "He is going to fetch a lot of experience into the coaching sector and let's be honest, he hasn't done badly in that respect at UK Athletics.

"It's a good thing, and let's remember particularly at Olympic level, he has had a decent amount of success with British teams in the past few years.

"Now let's hope he can be just as successful and help us achieve much more than we have done in the past."

Jones has enjoyed a well-earned break away from athletics, admitted he was relishing the opportunity of returning to the sport where he had an outstanding record.

He admitted: "After a while I began to miss it - involvement in athletics never really leaves you.

"I spent 24 years as a coach and then as the performance director at UK Athletics, and was involved with preparing the team for six Olympic Games."

Jones revealed he was approached by the Irish governing body just prior to Christmas and it took only a couple of meetings with them before accepting the appointment.

He said: "It's nice to be involved again - retiring left a big hole in my life, but it's going to be a big step for me.

"It will involve a lot of travelling to and from Ireland, but I'm really enthusiastic about what will be required of me.

"Short term I have to start preparing the Irish squad for Beijing next year but more importantly I have to produce a long term policy which will extend beyond London."

Jones will have some world-class talent to work with, notably World Indoor 60 metres hurdles champion Derval O'Rourke and David Gillick who last month successfully defended his European 400 metres title.