Eircom is owed £4.5 million (€5.71 million) by failed Dublin-based Internet content firm Local Ireland, a creditors' meeting was told yesterday.

Debts to other creditors amounted to about £400,000 with the Revenue Commissioners making up a substantial portion of that figure.

Mr David Hughes of Ernst & Young was appointed liquidator at the meeting and will seek to sell assets of the firm and collect unpaid debts.

The website features a genealogy service which enables people to trace Irish family histories.

Local Ireland closed with the loss of about 20 jobs last month following a decision by Eircom to rationalise its multimedia operations.

Eircom was a 90 per cent shareholder in Local Ireland following a decision to invest about £5 million in the website and its parent firm, Internet publisher Nua, in July 1998.