Injunctions granted in bakery picket row

The High Court has granted injunctions preventing a firm which provided distribution services for a bakery placing pickets on supermarkets which sell its bakery products.

Irish Pride Fine Foods (IPFF), which bought certain assets of the Irish Pride Bakeries firm from a receiver in December 2015, claims actions by Highfield Distribution Ltd are jeopardising its relations with major supermarkets.

John O’Callaghan, a director of Highfield, of Dromina, Charleville, Co Cork, claims he is owed €146,000 by IPFF in relation to distribution routes which he says belonged to him.

IPFF denies it owes him the money and says that while Highfield had operated a number of bread distribution routes for the former owner of the bakery, Highfield had surrendered those routes and received compensation from Irish Pride around February 2015.

From that date until Irish Pride went into receivership in June 2015, Highfield provided only "trunking services", IPFF director Declan Fitzgerald said in an affidavit. Trunking involves transporting product around the country to different locations for further distribution to retailers.

After transport services were put out for tender, Highfield was not one of the successful bidders, Mr Fitzgerald said.

Dunnes Stores

IPFF, of Cherry Orchard Estate, Ballyfermot, Dublin, says Dunnes Stores has said it will remove IPFF's product from its shelves because of picketing which has taken place in Dunnes' store in Killarney and threatens to do the same in Tralee, Charleville and Mallow.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan was told a letter had been sent by Mr O'Callaghan's solicitor on Tuesday morning saying his client was unable to attend court as he had been suddenly taken ill and was referred for an urgent appointment with a consultant.

Mr O’Callaghan would abide by any orders of the court and welcomed the opportunity of dealing with the matter in court, the solicitor stated.

The judge granted IPFF injunctions restraining picketing of any Dunnes premises, or any other stores, which it supplies. The injunctions were sought on an ex-parte (one side only represented) basis.