Nine years later the £130,000 which Paddy Musgrave paid for his old woollen mill site seems ridiculously low, even allowing for the £1 million he then invested in upgrading and expanding its space to 50,000 sq feet and resurfacing the seemingly endless car parking facilities around it.

He has recouped the cash investment since - about two thirds of the units in the estate have been sold to their occupants in recent years - but harbours some doubts regarding the sheer hard graft that went into the project. All told, Mr Musgrave reckons he is ahead on the deal, but declares that it's difficult to put a price on all the hairs on his head that have greyed or fallen out in the process.

The apparent cheapness of the property reflected the fact that the builders who would otherwise comprise a likely market simply were not interested on this occasion, and it was only after the purchase that he discovered why.

In his innocence, Paddy Musgrave did not realise that the mill race running the entire length of the site would become a liability. This water channel once powered the mill wheels, but subsequently became a source of flooding which had to be tamed before the site could be put to use. Remedial work on this feature absorbed much of the early effort in making the site habitable, and even with engineering and architectural advisers on hand, many of the solutions were arrived at only as the work got under way.

Since then, the old mill race has been given a new lease of productive life. Using his engineering background, Mr Musgrave installed a water driven generator and now sells electricity into the ESB national grid.

His company, Munslow, has also experienced some planning difficulties which have put it through a number of sparring rounds with South Dublin Co Council, over issues such as parking (which was eventually resolved only on the steps of the High Court), and even the type of shrubbery to be planted on the Liffey embankment.

After it ran out of development space in Lucan two years ago, the company acquired a site for green-field development adjacent to the Naas dual carriageway. Built in three blocks, this will provide a further 50,000 sq feet of industrial space in units of 3,500 sq ft and more - this will allow room for growth for the more successful of the company's Lucan tenants, as well as catering for new arrivals. The first block has been completed and is already fully booked. The second and third are due for completion in September and November respectively.