Waterstones' chief executive James Daunt says that he hopes that the bookseller will open more Irish stores during this year.

Against the backdrop of global trend of declining book sales, he says that the chain enjoyed a "really, really good" performance during 2015.

Mr Daunt was commenting as new figures showed pre-tax profits for the firm in Ireland fell by 12% to €712,000, in spite of the fact that revenues increased by 3% to €13.2m in the year to April 2015.

Its flagship Hodges Figgis store is among the international group's top five performing stores - its sales increased by 4%.

The iconic Dublin store had been the second strongest performer, but it has been passed by UK stores which enjoyed "a dramatic increase in sales over the past year."

Waterstone's Cork shop enjoyed double-digit growth during the year, "The store there really is doing amazingly good business," according to Mr Daunt.

He believes that the company will open more Irish stores, "We have hopes to expand but we don't have any specific sites in mind at the moment," he said.

Waterstone added that its Irish shops enjoyed a particularly strong Christmas period.