The jury in the trial of Seán FitzPatrick has been discharged and a new trial date of 5 October has been set.

Mr Fitzpatrick, 66, from Whitshed Road in Greystones in Co Wicklow, had pleaded not guilty to 27 offences under the 1990 Companies Act.

He denied making misleading, false or deceptive statements to auditors and furnishing false information between 2002 and 2007.

The jury was sworn in on 14 April. Legal argument began on 16 April. It was supposed to take two days but it continued for seven weeks.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring told the jurors the court had been dealing with legal issues and she said those issues had been dealt with and disposed of.

She said the trial was supposed to last eight weeks. But she said it was going to take longer than that.

Judge Ring said that meant the trial could not continue at the moment.

She also said she was going to have to discharge the jury and another jury would have to be sworn in to deal with the case.

She told the jurors that even though they had not heard any evidence, they had played a vital role in the trial.

She said the legal issues could not have been argued if a jury had not been empanelled.

She said it was unfortunate that, in the 21st century, the courts had not come up with procedures more in keeping with the way business should be done.

The judge said the courts were still labouring under procedures that were clearly out of date. But she said that was the way it was. "I just work here," she said.

Judge Ring told the jurors she understood that they had been totally inconvenienced and had been badly treated by the system.

She excused them from jury duty for the next seven years.

The case will be back before the court on 29 June for mention.

During an earlier hearing, the judge told the jurors there had been an unforeseen issue and an illness had caused serious timetable problems.