Convenience store operator ADM Londis said pretax profit jumped 71 per cent to €2.7 million last year as the company added new stores and benefited from its 2003 merger with Londis Topshop.

Sales rose 5 per cent to €309 million. Ireland's fourth-largest convenience-store chain last year added 43 new outlets, bringing its total to 330, and plans to open as many as 40 this year to help it compete with rivals such as Super-Valu and Centra.

"We are very pleased with the company's performance," said joint chief executive Stephen O'Riordan.

"We're in a fairly strong growth cycle with a low margin base and have a great future ahead of us."

Mr O'Riordan said the target is to have 400 stores across Ireland by 2007.

He said the chain is focusing on developing towns, which he described as the "urban areas of the future".

Mr O'Riordan urged the Government not to scrap the Groceries Order, which bans the low-cost selling of food products, saying lifting the order would put local community retailers, including his own company, under "immense pressure".

"There is no doubt any changes to it will pose a threat to the independent retail trade," he said. "The larger supermarkets would just adopt predatory pricing techniques, drawing the consumers in with some cut-price items, but then charging more for other items. Small businesses and consumers will both suffer."

The Consumer Strategy Group has called for the Groceries Order to be revoked, in its as yet unpublished report into consumer issues.

Rival convenience store Centra saw its sales increase by 9.5 per cent last year to €930 million, while sales at the largest chain of convenience stores, SuperValu, gained 4.7 per cent to reach €1.7 billion.