CRH has said the year started well across all regions where it has operations. Combined with the benefits of significant investment in recent years, this should ensure the company makes further progress in 1998.

Chairman, Mr Tony Barry, told shareholders at the annual meeting in Dublin yesterday that demand for cement and concrete products in Ireland is showing a steady advance on the exceptional growth of the first four months of 1997.

The group's British businesses have also had a good start to the year and have continued the trend of improving profit margins although overall market conditions in Northern Ireland remained "a little on the difficult side", Mr Barry said.

CRH's operations in Belgium and the Netherlands benefited from a mild winter, while ready-mixed concrete volumes and prices in Spain have continued the improvements seen in the second half of last year.

Mr Barry said market conditions were generally favourable for CRH's various operations in North America.

Debate on the re-authorisation of the US Federal Highway Programme, an important driver for its US materials business, continues on Capitol Hill. A positive outcome in terms of funding levels for the next six years is anticipated.

"While the first-half trading outlook is generally favourable, results will include seasonal first-half losses from acquisitions completed in the second half of 1997," Mr Barry said

The group is also reorganising its European operations on a product group basis. The new structure will include a materials group, a building products and a distribution group. Mr Barry said this was progressing well. CRH's chief executive Mr Don Godson later told the meeting the company saw the US as an arena for continued growth and development and also viewed Poland and central Europe "as an exciting arena for development".

Shareholders asked several questions relating to environmental and planning issues. Mr Barry said the company had, 1,000 sites around the world so the board was not always familiar with the precise details of planning issues and tended to devolve this to regional management. He invited many of those who spoke about particular local issues to meet with the company afterward to discuss them.

Asked by a shareholder, Mr Peter Sweetman, about the failure to register some 70 acres of land purchased by the company during the 1970s in Blessington, Mr Barry said the transaction was in the process of being registered.

Stamp duty had been paid on the purchase and the failure to register had been due to an oversight on the part of the solicitors rather than any "Machiavellian intention", Mr Barry said. He said that to the best of his knowledge, no other land transactions undertaken by CRH were unregistered.

He also told former Green Party TD Mr Roger Garland that the company had no specific proposals at present to exploit the natural resources of the Irish Sea bed. Mr Godson added that the company continued to research this area in the hope that it might find some opportunities that were compatible with the environment.

CRH chairman Mr Tony Barry told the annual meeting he was happy that "no expense worth speaking of" was incurred by the company in relation to the operation of the Ansbacher Accounts by former CRH chairman Mr Des Traynor.

According to the report of the McCracken Tribunal, the Ansbacher Accounts were run from CRH's registered offices in Fitzwilliam Square by Mr Traynor, who was appointed non-executive chairman of the company in 1987.

Mr Barry said the CRH chairman, by agreement of the board, carries out other business from the company's registered offices. This allows him to be available full-time for CRH and is not dissimilar to practises operated by other publicly quoted companies.