Irish cement-maker Ecocem has appointed accountant and former Bank of Ireland governor Laurence Crowley as its chairman.

In addition, Ged Pierse and Liam Durkan, both senior figures in the building industry here, have become non-executive directors.

Mr Pierse is known to be a shareholder in the company.

Ecocem has moved to beef up its board of directors in advance of an anticipated aggressive expansion of the business.

Founded in 2001 by Donal O'Riain (60), Ecocem imports granulated blastfurnace slag and dries and grinds it into a powder which is then used to make environmentally friendly cement.

It has manufacturing plants in Dublin Port and The Netherlands.

Ecocem's latest accounts show it made a pretax profit of €432,216 in 2006 compared with a loss of €929,935 the previous year.

Deferred tax credits of €551,115 meant it achieved a retained profit for 2006 of €983,331.

That was the company's first year of profitability. Its accumulated losses at the end of 2006 stood at €3.6 million.