Letting Agency gone bust - any chance of money back?

Ok - last year when my friend was moving out of our house in Galway the landlord informed him that he should go to the letting agency to get his deposit back as they had held on to it.

We went down only to discover that the company had gone bust a few months previously. We tried the new agency the landlord was dealing with (although he hadn't told us there had been a change) but they only held money from people who had started with the agency after a certain date.

We went to the detective in charge of the case as there was some fraudulent aspect to the business (or something along those lines). The guards have our names and contact details and we are each owed nearly 400 euro.

Does anyone know how long these things usually take to resolve and if people on the lower end of the creditors list ever end up getting money back? This happened over a year ago and we are still waiting to hear.