LIR CHOCOLATES, which manufacture luxury-end Irish truffles, has returned to profits in the year to April 2009, having made a loss the previous year.

The company returned profits before taxation of €129,410 according to accounts filed to the Companies Registration Office for the year ending April 30th, 2009, having returned losses of more than €585,000 a year previously.

Lir’s 2008 losses were partially attributed to the loss of €750,000 on foreign exchange due to the weakening of sterling against the euro as well as listing exceptional items of €56,226 in relocation and redundancy costs.

The company’s founders, Senator Mary White and Connie Doody, who founded the company in 1986 in East Wall, Dublin, to provide local employment, remain listed as directors of the company.

Other listed directors Stephen Cope, Hugh O’Brien, Ian Blackburn, Clive Beecham and Richard Reilly also had shares in the parent company, Zetar, on April 30th, 2009.

In 2007, the now Navan-based company was merged with British confectionary company Kinnerton, a subsidiary of Zetar, a UK publicly quoted food holding group.

The company employed 159 staff in its Meath base up until the end of April 2009, an increase of 27 staff on the previous year. Staff costs amounted to just under €4 million for the company’s 2009 accounting year.