Six Irish companies feature in a EuroBusiness magazine survey of Europe's top 500 companies. CRH heads the Irish list, ranked 223rd, with sales of €5.2 billion (£4.1 billion).

The others are Jefferson Smurfit (334), Glanbia (376), AIB Bank (395), Bank of Ireland (455) and Eircom (467).

The largest European company, ranked by sales, is the German DaimlerChrysler company, with sales of €131.7 billion, or over 25 times larger than CRH. The German company also generates the highest profits at €8 billion.

The survey also shows that six of the top 20 companies are in financial services, four are in the oil industry and four manufacture cars. By nationality, seven of the top 20 companies are German while Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands each have three. Financial services companies have the greatest representation, accounting for 21.5 per cent of the 500 companies in the survey.