Dunnes Stores directors Frank Dunne and Margaret Heffernan were paid a dividend of nearly €14.3m last year by their main company in the North and Britain. The interim dividend was paid as profits rose at Dunnes Stores (Bangor) to more than €23.3m in the financial year ended 30 January 2010. The duo had been paid €5.75m by the company the previous year.

The rise in profits came as turnover rose 3.5% to €232m, while pre-tax profit was up about 2.5% from nearly €22.7m.

Shareholders' funds at the company stood at nearly €340m at the end of the financial year while the amount of "cash at bank and in hand" rose to nearly €440m from more than €328m.

Earlier this year Retail Intelligence revealed that a dividend of nearly €5.5m during the financial year ending 31 January 2009 was paid out by a Dunnes subsidiary that ran the retailer's operations in Spain, property holdings in Ireland and was also involved in "the manufacturing of foodstuffs" via meat-processing company Tender Meats and frozen-food manufacturer Newbridge Foods.

Dunnes has been involved in a number of legal disputes lately with developers. Earlier this month it settled with Harry Crosbie and agreed to open in his Point Village retail scheme while on December 3 companies linked to Liffey Valley shopping centre lodged legal action against the retailer.