Former abattoir owner denies allegations over hiding and overpowering employee

The former owner of a Co Donegal abattoir, which was alleged to have been besieged in an occupation by members of the INLA, denied in the High Court on Monday “every single allegation” that had been levelled against him in evidence opened to the court.

Liam McGavigan publicly made the personal denials before Mr Justice Brian O’Moore who made orders restoring his former company Edenmore Farm Meats Limited, Coolatee, Lifford, to the Companies Register and appointing a liquidator to wind up its affairs.

Donal Gallagher, a director of Edenmore Farm Meats, claimed in a sworn affidavit opened to the court that Strabane, Co Tyrone-based McGavigan had been a director of Edenmore until January 2015 but had been kept on as general manager in charge of sourcing, pricing and grading animals.

Gallagher, McGavigan’s first cousin, told the court that his company Twin Estates had made what turned out to be a disastrous investment in Edenmore and until September 2016 he had run the company with his co-directors Robert Daly and Richard Burke.

There had been a serious deterioration in the relationship between himself and McGavigan when Edenmore refused to acknowledge a personal debt owed by McGavigan to his father. That relationship had been irrevocably sundered in October 2016 “by events perpetrated by Liam McGavigan and suspected members of the INLA from Northern Ireland.”

Gallagher, in his sworn evidence, had alleged that McGavigan in the dead of night had hidden himself in a laundry room and overpowered an employee when the factory was opened the next morning. Co-conspirators had arrived in a white van and had proceeded to remove files and filing cabinets and a safe.

He claimed that McGavigan had organised protests at the factory gates and that on October 20th, 2016 the local Sinn Féin TD, Pearse Doherty, at the request of the company had chaired a meeting of all the local farmers who supplied animals and who had been claiming they had been owed more than €1.6 million.

The company had agreed a deal of discharging due debts but before this could be implemented McGavigan and others had illegally barricaded themselves in the factory locking out company representatives and workers.

Gallagher stated Letterkenny gardaí­ had investigated two credible threats from the INLA related to the occupation against two of the company’s employees Mark Friel and Richard Burke, a co-director. He said the events at the time were the subject of lengthy newspaper articles headed “The Siege of Lifford”. It had been impossible for company representatives to access any accounts and records.

Mr Gallagher told Judge O’Moore that the investment by Twin Estates Ltd had been an unmitigated disaster.

Judge O’Moore reinstated the company to the Companies Register and appointed John Healy of Kirby Healy as liquidator. He said that considering disputed evidence regarding the matter of the alleged theft of records he would not order that a statement of the company’s business affairs be made to the Companies Registrar’s Office within a specific allotted period.

He urged parties to seek to resolve the whereabouts of the company’s books and records and awarded costs against the company to a group of creditor farmers who claimed they were owed around €1.8 million and who had brought the liquidation proceedings through barrister Brian Walker and Mayo solicitor Katherine Hunter.

Edenmore Meats directors Donal Gallagher, Richard Burke and Robert Daly , who were respondents to the applications before the court, were represented by barrister Andrew Walker, with Woodcock Solicitors.

Mr McGavigan’s denials before Judge O’Moore were made in reference to all of the allegations set out against him in evidence presented to the court.