We have been hearing for a long time about Philip Lynch's plans to build an £18million (€22.86 million) flour mill in the north docks area of Dublin, a move that would allow IAWS make yet another property killing - this time on the Bolands mill site on the much-in-demand Grand Canal Basin.

But with flour prices going through the floor as IAWS's Bolands and Greencore's Odlums try to cope with a flood of low-cost imports, some observers believe that the Irish flour industry does not need loads of money going into another flour mill.

Odlums has three flour mills and Bolands has two, and observers believe that Irish demand for flour could be comfortably handled by, at most, three mills. With IAWS planning to spend more than €100 million on its share of the Tim Hortons joint venture in Canada, it must be tempting for Philip Lynch to take his property windfall from Bolands and plough it all into his more profitable consumer foods businesses. If he wants to retain an interest in Irish flour, that would mean IAWS coming to some accommodation with Greencore, possibly involving the two food companies in some sort of joint ownership.

Previously, that might have triggered the interest of the competition regulators but, with so many imports, that might not be a problem.