Dublin - Dublin and Washington have signed a deal to allow 20,000 Irish school leavers to live and work in the US for 12 months and also allow 5,000 US citizens to live and work in Ireland for the same length of time, the Irish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Micheal Martin signed the deal on Wednesday with US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in Washington.

"This represents one of the most significant developments in our visa arrangements with the US in almost two decades," Martin said in a statement.

Under the working holiday scheme, known as the J Visa, those wishing to live and work in either country will not require a job offer in advance.

Some 13,000 Irish people lived and worked in Australia under a similar scheme last year, Martin said.

Martin said the new visa was separate to the Irish government's efforts to resolve the problem of the so-called "undocumented Irish" living and working in the US without visas.

The government estimates there are between 20,000 and 25,000 undocumented Irish in the US, while lobbyists in the US put the figure at closer to 50,000. (dpa)