Department store Marks & Spencer (M&S) saw its Irish like-for-like sales drop 7.7% last year, making it the worst performing part of its international division. The drop came despite the weakening of sterling during the year, which should have boosted turnover. The company traditionally does not break out any Irish sales figures.

One analyst who spoke to the Sunday Tribune accused M&S of fudging the question of how it would have performed if sterling had not dropped so dramatically. The analyst said he had raised the matter with the company after it reported its annual results for the year ended 29 March 2009, but he was not getting "any further joy on it".

M&S finance director Ian Dyson said last week the retailer's "international sales are up 26% and profit was flat at £116m". However, that masked difficulties here, with Dyson saying that "Ireland clearly did perform poorly. Its profits were quite a bit down... If you look at the owned businesses, internationally, Ireland was the biggest factor... along with China".

The company's presentation to analysts said it was also slashing spending on modernising shops and maintenance programmes and its international capital expenditure will fall significantly.

M&S is planning to offload the Tommy Hilfiger building it owns at Grafton Street in Dublin for less than €25m, compared to the €60m-plus it would have achieved if it had been sold two years ago.