The director and general manager of Xerox Europe, Mr Joe Browne, has played down the significance for its Irish operations of reports over a bigger-than-expected misstatement of revenues at the parent company.

"There are no implications for the Irish operations from such a filing," Mr Browne said yesterday.

While he said he could not comment on the figures reported in the press, he said the filing of its 10K accounts in the US would not have an impact on the Republic. Xerox employs more than 2,000 people in the State.

"I have no reason to believe that there is any issue and, in fact, within the corporation, it has been very calm and there has been no concern. It's frankly not something which I think we need to be concerned about. It's a mechanical filing," said Mr Browne.

Xerox has had a somewhat troubled history in the Republic. The copier-maker had highly publicised plans to create up to 2,000 jobs in Dundalk, Co Louth. But in June last year about 500 of its 1,000 staff at the plant lost their jobs when the company decided to close its small-office and home-office division, which produced ink-jet printers for computers.

While 500 workers are still employed by Xerox in Dundalk, the company has no plans to increase its presence there.

More than 1,500 staff are also employed at Xerox's European customer service centre in Blanchardstown, Dublin. But Mr Browne said the operations in the Republic had been meeting expectations. "The operations are going great in Dublin and Dundalk," he said.

"All targets are being met and they have been very stable now for a number of quarters since June of last year when we had the unfortunate announcement at our ink-jet business in Dundalk. Since then we have had complete stability and have been performing well. Ireland still has a strategic place in the Xerox mindset. It's business as usual."