When George McCabe opened Ballybay Meats in 1989, it was hailed as the most modern pork processing plant in Europe.

Within a year, Ulster Investment Bank had sent in receiver Tom Grace on foot of a £3 million debt. His rejection of a £500,000 offer from Mr McCabe for the £5 million plant led to pickets being put on the plant.

Companies which expressed an interest in acquiring the plant said they received intimidating phone calls.

At the time, Mr Grace said: "In my 10 years in the insolvency business, I have never witnessed anything like this level of intimidation. Rubble was dumped, people got phone calls, the head of a local security firm had his car rammed and a colleague had to be hospitalised."

Seventeen months into the receivership, Mr Grace went to the High Court for an order restraining three directors of the company from interfering with the sale of the plant or the work of the receiver. The Ballybay plant was eventually sold to Goodman International.

The collapse was probed by the Department of Agriculture and the Garda fraud squad. Danish police investigated allegations that the company was connected to the passing off Hungarian pork as Danish.