Irish Press Newspapers (IPN) will be dissolved following a final meeting of the company's creditors yesterday.

The meeting, which lasted less than 10 minutes and was attended by only a handful of people, approved the receipts and payments accounting for the period from September 8th, 1995 to September 7th, 1998, presented by liquidator Mr Tom Grace of PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

IPN's receipts over this period totalled £1,953,503. Of the total, £1,462,520 went to pay IPN's secured creditors or debenture holders - Ingersoll Irish Publications, Independent Newspapers Plc and Irish Press Plc, which were owed £2.7 million between them.

Ingersoll, a US company which invested more than £5 million in the newspapers, received £503,091 in respect of its debt of over £1 million. Independent Newspapers was also owed around £1 million and received £728,787 while £230,642 went to Irish Press Plc.

As expected, IPN's 1,600 unsecured creditors got nothing from the sale as the rest of the money went to pay fees - including £108,230 to pay the liquidator - and on other costs.

Meanwhile, Mr Ray Jackson of KPMG, who was appointed as receiver to the company, said he was in the process of finalising the claims of preferential creditors who are owed some £6 million.