He is the monkey-suit man who spits fire in the Dragon's Den. If you go into the Den tonight, be sure to wear your skin thick, for he may well burn your confidence to a cinder.

Niall O'Farrell wasn't that well known outside of business circles before he became a dragon. Now he is one of the five fire spitters on RTé's "X-Factor for wannabes who can't sing, dance or tell jokes" TV series.

Tired, huddled, would-be entrepreneurs enter the den with a business idea. The dragons run the rule over the idea and decide whether to invest their loot or dismiss the applicant. There is plenty of dramatic music and sharp camera angles. The viewers are lapping it up.

O'Farrell is among the testier of the dragons. A few weeks back, he told one tired, huddled, would-be entrepreneur that his idea was "a joke". He has the cut of a man who never would have feared a dragon during the early days of his own empire building.

O'Farrell entered the shallows of business at the tender age of 20. That was back in 1985, when he established the forerunner to his flagship business, the dress-hire outfit, Blacktie.

However, even dragons get the blues, and O'Farrell is not immune to the travails that are afflicting the once high and mighty. When he's not spitting fire, the multimillionaire may well be poring over legal documents these days as he has found himself immersed in a mounting number of legal disputes.

A clothing manufacturer from Cheshire in the UK is suing O'Farrell for what he claims to be 1,200 men's suits delivered to Blacktie last November. The principal of the company, Mark Millington, reportedly travelled to Dublin earlier this year in search of the cash, but he couldn't get an audience with the debonair dragon.

Millington was quoted last week as expressing dismay at O'Farrell investing in Den projects, while he had to go without his cash. O'Farrell has said it was all a misunderstanding which he is now rectifying.

Back home, O'Farrell's Blacktie has been served with civil proceedings for the non-payment of rent at the company's flagship Blackrock store in Dublin. Rent of €20,000 is allegedly due.

Elsewhere, a construction firm, M&P, is claiming that it is owed €130,000 from an O'Farrell-controlled company for unpaid work at a couple of the entrepreneur's premises. O'Farrell is disputing the bill.

The celebrated dragon wouldn't be human if he managed to skate through the current credit crunch unscathed. He is introduced on the Den as the owner of a major property empire, but the solidity of his empire's foundations will be sorely tested in the current climate.

Things could be worse. He has only to look over his fence at neighbour Sean Dunne on the fabulously appointed Shrewsbury Road to realise what it's like to be under serious pressure. Dunne – the poster boy for the property bubble – and O'Farrell have not always seen eye to eye. When O'Farrell moved in, he sold part of the site to Dunne, but the two fell out and marched down to the High Court to resolve the dispute. A high wall now separates their respective pads. They are reported to both regard the affair as water under the bridge.

O'Farrell came of age in the middle of the last great recession in the 1980s. On leaving school in 1982, he went to work for a retailers' outfit in Dun Laoghaire, which he later likened to the shop in another TV series, Are You Being Served?.

From a middle-class family in Ranelagh, his father was an auctioneer, but Niall didn't show any interest in the business when he did his leaving cert in the exclusive Catholic University School. In 1985, he rented the first floor in his father's business premises and opened Club Dresswear, the forerunner to Blacktie. Within four years, he had a second shop up and running.

The rest is the history of weddings, debs and graduation dos for the last 20 years. O'Farrell has built up a business which until the recent downturn was turning over €6m a year and providing employment for 130.

His empire expanded to the UK a few years ago when he began operating the Jermyn Street shirts shop in Piccadilly. A punt at operating a similar shop in Dublin was one of the first casualties of the downturn.

His property portfolio certainly sounds extensive. When he was expanding Blacktie throughout Dublin and into other cities he made a point of buying the premises where the outlets operated. Often, he leased back the properties to the business. The result was that at the height of the bubble, he was sitting on a serious pile.

He bought further property in the UK and also started up a drinks and snack-food business called Simply Direct.

And he is simply direct in the Den. He is likely to be simply direct with his employees in the coming months as he cuts his cloth according to the prevailing circumstances, tightening his belt on costs and dreaming up some new sartorial metaphors.

While he has been affected by the recession, he is unlikely to loose his shirt.

O'Farrell's record in business suggests he is anything but an all-fur-coat-and-no-knickers entrepreneur. He was barely out of short pants when he started his dress-hire business, and will no doubt make a success of it wherever he hangs his hat when the country finally pulls itself up by its bootstraps. Whenever that will be.

Curriculum Vitae

Name: Niall O'Farrell

Age: 44

Business: The man behind Blacktie and one of the dragons who run the rule over budding entrepreneurs in RTE's "talent" show

Why in the news: All dragons are in the news; and, like many high-profile businesspeople today, he is having to find time to deal with legal disputes which are en route to the courts