Ten stores in five years is home improvement chain B&Q's growth target forIreland, parent group Kingfisher boss, Gerry Murphy, tells Emmet Oliverat its new Tallaght store.

Gerry Murphy's business philosophy would probably be summed up by his begrudgers as: "it's not what you know, but who you know".

The Kingfisher chief executive rejects suggestions that his rapid climb up the British corporate ladder is thanks to endless networking and an ability to nurture friendships with senior British executives.

Although long-standing relationships with the likes of the late Bernie Cahill, Kingfisher chairman Mr Francis Mackay and BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland have propelled him into some very plush British boardrooms, the UCC-educated businessman believes his success has a lot more to do with learning the precious skills of management.

Speaking from B&Q's new store in Tallaght and dressed in a bright orange B&Q apron, Mr Murphy appears to be enjoying his new role. He even looked comfortable directing one perplexed man towards the screwdriver section of the store.

"I've been a public company chief executive for the last 12 years. This is my fourth such role. And much of what a public company chief executive does is generic. It is managing the interface with the owners of the business, the shareholders," he says.

His three previous outings as chief executive were at Greencore, the NFC Transport Group in London (later renamed Exel) and, most recently, at British television group Carlton. He also worked for many years in drinks group Grand Metropolitan.

Some of these experiences were bruising, none more so than his stint at Carlton, where chairman Mr Michael Green has traditionally been the dominant figure. According to British press coverage, "straight-talking Murphy" proved the perfect complement to the fiery Mr Green.

Unfortunately, when Mr Murphy joined Carlton, advertising was plunging and digital television was eating up cash. As profits fell, he was forced to halve the dividend and watch as Carlton was expelled from the FTSE 100.

However, the Corkman restructured the company into two divisions - content and channels - and managed to keep programme-makers happy.

His biggest problem was the disastrous investment Ondigital, the digital service owned by Carlton and Granada. Ondigital subsequently became ITV Digital but the re-branding exercise did not stop its disastrous football rights deal dragging the company into liquidation and it proved an embarrassing episode for Mr Murphy and fellow Carlton and Granada directors.

Mr Murphy, however, is a resilient figure and earlier this year he landed a new role at Kingfisher plc, which owns the B&Q chain of home-improvement stores.

While he had no background in direct retailing, the same lack of direct experience had not stopped him getting the job at Carlton. But surely an in-depth knowledge of the the company's product is necessary to be its chief executive?

"I would describe it in three thirds. About a third of the job is generic to being a public company chief executive, as opposed to a divisional chief executive.

"There is another third which is about operating in 10 countries, and just the process of managing a very big company is pretty generic. And then there is about a third that is specific to the industry, and inevitably there is a learning curve one has to climb in a new business."

He adds: "Because it is a mainstream consumer business, and I have been in mainstream consumer business all my career, many of the principles are very common.

"The actual product proposition is one I have some empathy with. I like DIY, I've always done a bit. It's quite an easy business for someone like me to relate to. It's not a highly specialised, esoteric business, it's a very accessible, mainstream people business. To that extent, it has been relatively easy to get up to speed," he explains.

Asked about the transition from Carlton to Kingfisher, he is philosophical. "I don't have a career plan. Life isn't like that. Opportunities arise."

While now existing outside the narrow confines of Irish business, he says he still gets back to Cork four or five times a year.

To those who find it strange to see a former Greencore executive heading up a DIY grouping, Mr Murphy has a quick riposte.

"It's my first direct retail job but I've spent my whole career in and around retail. In food manufacturing, in drinks manufacturing, in logistics and supply chain management, where the biggest customers were retailers, and in advertising more recently, where our biggest advertisers in the UK were retailers. So I've been all around it. This is the first time I've actually been in it.

"Yeah it's great. We've got some of the best brands in the world in the sector. We have got number one and two market positions in every market we operate in."

The company recently raised £1 billion sterling (€1.43 billion) of debt in the bond market in London and Europe. "We were over-subscribed by three to one. So the bond investors clearly believe we are a good credit proposition.

"On top of that, our business is very cash-generative. We can generate enough cash from our current businesses to fund the re-investment in stores like this without going back to shareholders."

The plan for Ireland is simple: "We'd like to have 10 stores in five years."

Tallaght is the second B&Q store to open in the Republic; the previous one opened in Liffey Valley, west Dublin.

He explains that Liffey Valley is one of the most successful B&Q stores in the chain worldwide.

"This demonstrates that there is an obvious demand in this country for the kind of proposition that B&Q offers. It is big stores. Liffey Valley is a major warehouse store and has about 32,000 items in the store at any time. So it's an enormous range of products. And it aims to be the most comprehensive in each of the categories it covers."

Tallaght is not as big, but it is big. But the Government's cap on superstores (they cannot be larger than 6,000 sq m) represents a limit to Kingfisher's expansion plans for the Republic.

Mr Murphy, not surprisingly, is not a big fan of the idea and rejects the argument that such a cap protects smaller family owned retailers.

"We believe home improvement - whether it's DIY as practised by consumers, or trade - is a business that isn't naturally done in town centres anyway. It isn't today and that's not surprising when you consider the nature of the product. Big, bulky, heavy items are ones that you need to be able to take straight to the car. So the town centre proposition generally doesn't work. It doesn't happen. It's an industry fact that this kind of shopping needs a certain type of shopping environment," he says.

"If you look at the consumption of DIY products in this country, its about a third less than the UK. There is no reason it should be, actually. Home ownership is high here per capita, income is comparable, people care about their homes in exactly the same way.

"And I think the reason is that the customer hasn't had the kind of offering to make it easily available. It has been too hard to do DIY and too expensive. So our proposition is really to make home improvement much better value and much easier," he adds.

But what about wiping out the smaller operators?

"People shop in different stores for different reasons. It's the same with food, where you have convenience stores, mid-size top-up stores and major shopping events. Home improvement is the same. There will always be specialist stores, there will always be neighbourhood hardware stores but what we are saying we'd like to be able to offer is one-stop shopping for those people who want it.

"Our experience in the UK and elsewhere as well is that B&Q would tend to compete with other major national chains. So obviously we would compete in Ireland with Woodies and Atlantic. So other big national companies would be our competitors, more than the specialists in downtown locations."

With that he whips off the orange apron, puts back on his jacket and gets ready to fly backto Heathrow.

Behind him the people of Tallaght are pouring into the store, wheeling large trolleys in front of them.

Meanwhile, a man is scratching his head deciding which screwdriver to buy. It is sometimes not easy making decisions when surrounded by almost 6,000 sq m of goods.