By TOM GILLESPIE

But Fr. Keane admitted: " It is all good. They are all helping people to meet and that is the important thing."

He added: " There is a lot of competition now from professional dating agencies in Dublin who are doing very big business. It has become very professional and it is geared to the yuppie.

"Some of the fees charged by these organisations can be up to £1,000. I know of one case where a man got six introductions for £265 and he thought it was good value.

"We only charge £50 once and no more. We are only charging that to stay in existence and meet our overheads. We are not in the business of making money. It is a social service. We blazed a trail I suppose. Now a whole lot of people are cashing in on it"

The print media, too, he said, had gone into this sector, publishing pages and pages of dating advertisements.

One wedding a fortnight resulted last year from introductions at the Knock Marriage Bureau, according to Fr. Keane. Male farmers and female teachers topped the list of clients who availed of the services of the agency while applications were received from as far away as Australia, America and France.

Twenty-four marriages resulted in 1996 from the 202 men and 154 women who sought partners through the bureau. Fifteen men applied in Mayo last year and four women.

A recent survey of the first 652 marriages showed that they married 20 women from Mayo and 37 men.

At the moment there are 200 introductions in place while twelve other couples have announced their engagements. This brings to 676 the number of marriages which were created since the opening of the office twenty-nine years ago.

Since then there have been 26,750 enquiries while applications were completed by 8,048 men and 5,906 women which resulted in 11,346 couples being introduced.

Fr. Keane said: "We're very happy with the results. We are doing a steady business all the time."