July 2022 17
A Crossborder Community feels so betrayed that it’s issued legal
proceedings against the part-successors to the Quinn Group - QBRC
Media miss another side
to Quinn saga
Sean Quinn, once Ireland’s richest person, has lost
almost all of his €6bn, but the question is whether he
has still worse to come. The media continue to be
unsympathetic to Quinn since his bankruptcy and
jailing in 2012, and, arguably have not given a fair
hearing to his argument that the government was
complicit in his demise. Village is amongst those
media outlets that have deprecated him for dodgy
dealings but we like to think that we are dierent from
our colleagues in as much as we do take an an
investigative interest in the developing narrative about
Mannok, which now rules over the ruins of Quinn’s
empire.
By Michel Smith
The media ignore allegations that Kevin Lunney
was himself implicated in sabotage and violence
and — as published in the March edition of Village
The media were unsympathetic to Quinn when he
was bankrupted and, in 2012, jailed, though there is
an argument that the government was complicit in his
demise.
They have recently revelled in reports of Garda
swoops on his house following ongoing complaints of
“harassment” made by Mannok (though they half-
heartedly deny they have made complaints) and in
connection with investigations into the widely reviled
and vicious attacks on Kevin Lunney, one of the men
who replaced Quinn in his company.
The media ignore allegations that Kevin Lunney was
himself implicated in sabotage and violence and — as
published in the March edition of Village — that there
is extraordinary delinquency, including apparent
fraud, on the part of some other board members of
Mannok also. Our media never analyse why the border
Community remains devoted to this anathema.
Four scandals missed by media
This piece considers 1) the alleged harassment of
Mannok, formerly QIH, directors; 2) the circumstances
of Quinn’s bankruptcy at the hands of Anglo-Irish Bank
and the Irish state; 3) the betrayal of the community by
the directors of Mannok, formerly QIH; 4) alleged
Media, blinded by
Sean Quinn’s history,
ignore reality of
2022 Quinn Country,
falsely implying he
is a Godfather of
harassment
NEWS
18 July 2022
criminal delinquency on the part of directors of
Mannok.
Quinn Group just one part comprised Quinn
Direct Insurance, now Liberty Insurance, a
substantial glass business — the jewel in the
crown — which continues to thrive in Spanish
ownership, Quinn Plastics, several wind farms
and a range of property interests in Ireland and
internationally.
Quinn Group was a conglomerate; Mannok is
a new entity that owns two of its businesses,
Construction Products and Packaging. QIH was
newly established in 2014 and rebranded as
Mannok in September 2020.
1) alleged harassment of Mannok, formerly
QIH, directors.
The central media narrative of some elusive
force, Sean Quinn or otherwise, that has long
been at work intimidating directors of his former
company, is unproven.
Despite intense speculation there is no
evidence of ongoing violence or harassment and
there is an alternative narrative of the causes of
the earlier violence — sabotage and beatings—
that all agree has actually taken place. There is
no evidence of a Mr Big or a ‘Paymaster’ waiting
to be taken down by inept ocialdom.
Who carried out the sabotage?
Sean McGovern worked for many years for
Quinn companies and is a neighbour of Sean
Quinn.
He was sacked by QIH when the lorry he was
driving overturned while tipping its load. QIH
claimed that he did it on purpose.
Sean is the father of Bernard and Patrick
McGovern.
Patrick was recently acquitted of attempting
to kill Kevin Lunney’s brother and nephew.
Pay attention. For the media are not.
All three have been in hot water with QIL/
Mannok.
A complaint to Mannok in the name of Sean
and Patrick McGovern dated March 2022
describes acts of sabotage against the property
of QIH, including an electricity substation and
electricity poles, and putting acid into
machinery, between 2011 and 2014 – to
discourage outside investment and the existing
outside share receivers and management.
The substation was, suspiciously, opened by
key before being blown up.
Shockingly the complaint names Gareth,
Peter, and Tony, Lunney as alleged perpetrators
of sabotage.
It claims Kevin and Tony Lunney told Bernard
McGovern, a boxer and an emotionally
vulnerable minor, to go to the Bog Road, close
to the entrance to the substation to act as a
lookout.
It alleges Kevin Lunney, though less involved
than some other family members, also attended
meetings about acts of sabotage and that
incentives for him and his colleagues, when they
became directors of QIH, were tailored to apply
only in the event there were no acts of sabotage
or buyer intimidation; and that those acts duly
stopped.
Bernard McGovern later assaulted Kevin
Lunney in a garage in Ballyconnell after his
father was let go from QIH.
He was given a sentence of three and a half
years, which he is still serving. But he claims he
was abused by the Lunneys when they involved
him in the substation sabotage.
It has been reported that the late Cyril
McGuinness, aka ‘Dublin Jimmy’, allegedly the
perpetrator of the London Docklands bomb,
carried out the sabotage, on behalf of the
unknown ‘paymaster’, though in fact it appears
McGuinness was in jail in Belgium at the time of
the substation sabotage for example.
But it has been alleged by Sean and Patrick
McGovern that at least one of the agents of the
sabotage, if not an actual ‘paymaster’, was
Kevin Lunney.
This shifts the incentives in purveying a
narrative about alternative paymasters, for
those about whom allegations are being made.
McGuinness was also one of those convicted
of the barbaric beating of Kevin Lunney.
While some believe this unjustified and
outrageous beating was intimidation by people
with a vested interest, others say it is because
Lunney and McGuinness fell out over a financial
issue or more likely because McGuinness was
unhappy that, as outlined in detail below,
Lunney’s involvement in Mannok was not
serving the community which wanted Sean
Quinn back.
All this may suggest there may have been no
further paymaster for the Lunney beating,
though in 2021 the Special Criminal Court said
portentously: “The mystery ‘paymaster’ who
funded the abduction and assault of Kevin
Lunney could face life imprisonment if
convicted”.
In June, the Garda launched a major security
operation focused on Kevin Lunney and his
fellow directors at Mannok after receiving what
the press reported as “reliable intelligence” that
some of them were being targeted for attack.
The Garda Ombudsman is reportedly
investigating alleged leaks by a member of the
force of confidential statements about
harassment given to the Garda in 2018 by John
McCartin, a former Fine Gael Councillor and
Cathaoirleach in Leitrim and now a member of
the board of Mannok.
McCartin, who is close to some members of
Fine Gael in government — the party has not
been well disposed to Quinn since the ascent of
the reckless Quinn Direct Insurance — has been
central to reports of the elusive paymaster.
For example a report by Paul Williams, crime
correspondent of the Irish Independent, from
November last year was headlined: “‘Now
unmask mystery abduction and torture
paymaster’, urges Kevin Lunney colleague
[McCartin] as gardaí focus on finding brutal
campaign’s funder”.
The report went on: “Gardaí and the PSNI have
informed Mr Lunney, his brother Tony, John
McCartin, Liam McCarey and Dara O’Reilly that
the threat level against them remains high.
This is despite the arrest, two years ago, of the
three kidnappers and the sudden death of their
boss, Cyril ‘Dublin Jimmy’ McGuinness”.
In early June the Independent reported that
“armed Garda ocers have been deployed to
protect Tony Lunney, John McCartin and Dara
Kevin Lunney
July 2022 19
O’Reilly, who have been deemed as being most
at threat as a result of the latest threat”.
The paper has also reported claims from its
sources that the ‘paymaster’ who was
responsible for ordering the September 2019
attack on Mr Lunney may now have hired “two
known republican terrorists” from the North to
attack the directors who live in Cavan and
Leitrim”.
Councillor McCartin, who was justly
celebrated in the Irish Times in 2015 for playing
“an important role in the return of a large
element of the former Quinn Group to local
control”, had complained to the Garda about
intimidation of its Directors.
He claims his complaint was leaked to the
“paymaster”. Yet, despite widespread media
reports of intimidation and Sean Quinn’s inane
insistence on driving his car around Mannok
premises at strange hours, it is not clear if there
is current intimidation of Mannok directors or if
McCartin’s complaint is still live. ASK MCCARTIN
It is understood Quinn has engaged McCartin
with legal correspondence for his role in
throwing dirt at Quinn.
It is notably the case that many of the stories
about ongoing intimidation are traceable to John
McCartin and Independent Group (now
Mediahuis) newspapers, led by Paul Williams.
On the other hand, FermanaghNewsOnLine
recently noted: “following the raid on Sean
Quinn’s family home in April, when one of the
garda ocers conducting the search told Sean
Quinn’s solicitor it was organised on the back of
complaints made by Mannok, a spokesperson
for the company stated in the Impartial Reporter
newspaper of April, 28 that ’Mannok’s main
engagement with the Gardaí occurred several
years ago following Kevin Lunney’s abduction
and it has had relatively limited engagement
with the Gardaí since then beyond occasional
updates’”.
There are wildly dierent views of what is
going on with the Garda, in Quinn Country.
Patrick McGovern
Meanwhile, in March 2022, largely unreported,
Patrick McGovern, was accused of no less than
threatening to kill father and son Peter and
Gareth Lunney, the brother and nephew of Kevin
Lunney.
Enniskillen Magistrates Court dismissed the
charges because he did not believe the evidence
of the Lunney men.
Gareth Lunney perjury
Directly after the hearing, police arrested and
cautioned Gareth Lunney for perjury as he
emerged from the courtroom having failed in his
attempt to have Patrick McGovern found guilty.
Gareth Lunney had alleged Patrick McGovern
had broken down his front door but the court
found, after hearing evidence from the
tradesman alleged to have carried out the repair,
that he had produced fake invoices for a door
replacement he hadn’t performed.
RTÉ abandons its duties
Meanwhile, amid fear of threats, and with a
typically tin ear to the nuance of the internecine
Mannok feuding, RTÉ has cravenly, at least
temporarily, shelved plans to broadcast a major
documentary series focusing on Quinn’s rise
and fall. A three-part series, Quinn Country, had
originally been scheduled to air in January.
Liam McCaffrey, the CEO of Mannok
highlighted concerns that the three-part series,
Quinn Country, could, as Paul Williams put it in
the Irish Independent, “inflame a small group of
individuals who still pose a serious threat to the
lives of the five directors”.
2) the circumstances of Quinn’s bankruptcy
at the hands of Anglo-Irish Bank and the
Irish state
Conventional wisdom blames the
recklessness of Sean Quinn for his bankruptcy,
jailing and the loss of billions to the State, and
it was certainly foremost, but the State is
implicated too.
Quinn’s gambles on Anglo Irish Bank went
wrong, leading to his being declared bankrupt
in the Republic in January 2012.
A notable delinquency on the part of the State
was the outrageous actions of the Department
of Finance.
Ann Nolan, the Second Secretary-General at
the Department of Finance with responsibility
for financial stability/risk management gave
evidence in 2015 to a case taken by the Quinn
family against IBRC, Sean Quinn and former
Quinn Group directors.
The family had had a 25 per cent stake in
Anglo, held through ‘Contracts for Dierence’ —
a contract rather than a shareholding.
The family later converted this into a 15 per
cent stake in the bank, using bank finance,
partly channelled through Quinn Direct
Insurance, while other long-term customers, of
the bank (the Maple 10) used further loans from
the bank to buy the remaining 10 per cent.
This conversion of the Contracts for Dierence
prevented a flood of shares coming onto the
market. But it was ultimately illegal and improper
to facilitate the wind-down of Anglo and the
Quinn Group without resolving this extraordinary
illegality, for it was predictable that the Quinns
would get some very substantial benefit if it
could be shown that their own delinquencies
were known to the regulatory section of the
Department of Finance, the State.
Nolan said that a draft letter dated 3 February
Synopsis of evidence from Ann Noln tht Centrl Bnk
hd prepred two versions of letter: one of which hd
Anglo denying it lent for purposes of tking contrcts for
difference
20 July 2022
2009 from the then chairman of Anglo, Donal
O’Connor, to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan
stated: “As requested, I enclose a report on the
extent of lending for the purposes of share
acquisitions and contracts for differences
generally and Anglo shares in particular”.
However, she also drew attention to an
alternative version of the same letter, dated the
next day which was amended to read: “The total
extent of lending by the Bank for the purposes
of acquiring publicly quoted shares is €1.767bn
(See Annex 1). We do not lend for the purpose of
taking positions in contracts for dierences. Of
this total, €918.6m relates to lending for the
purpose of acquiring shares in Anglo Irish
Bank”.
In other words, the letter was changed to omit
a reference that would show the Department of
Finance knowing that the Quinn Group had a CFD
position.
There were a lot of improprieties associated
with the Quinn Group, especially related to the
support of Anglo’s share price. The problem was
that Anglo had benefited from Quinn’s support
and, indirectly therefore, so had the State.
If the support was illegal but had been
approved by the State then a fair observer might
say the State might ultimately have to suer
some of the loss that it in the end seemed
determined to dump on Quinn himself and his
group.
The Central Bank came to a weird, presumably
embarrassed, settlement with Quinn Direct
Insurance, the vehicle for the share support, and
some of its directors. In December 2019 the
Central Bank entered a settlement agreement
with Liam McCarey in his capacity as a former
director of Quinn Insurance which had made
losses of €905m in 2009, and €160m in 2010
partly through loans made by Quinn Insurance
to fund speculative investments for other Quinn
family companies, to cover falling stock-market
investments and finance share-buying in Anglo
Irish Bank.
In 2008, Quinn Insurance was levied a record
€3.25 million fine by the Financial Regulator
though in the circumstances of its dire state, and
compromisingly for all involved, it was never
levied. A related private High Court judge-
chaired Central Bank inquiry into suspected
participation by Directors Liam McCarey and
Kevin Lunney in breaches of regulations relating
to accounting and controls was settled without
comment, and compromisingly, by the Central
Bank in 2019. McCarey seems to have had
CFDs in Anglo shares worth €1.6m with the
source of €500,000 of his funding ultimately
being the Quinn Group.
3) the betrayal of the community by the
directors of Mannok.
There is another untold tale that reflects badly
on those who have replaced Quinn, because
they have betrayed the community that set them
as replacements for the Quinn family in the naïve
belief that they would eventually make way for
them.
Reflecting local concern that Quinn, whose
delinquencies were multiple, had got short
shrift a not-for-profit organisation — Cavan,
Fermanagh Leitrim Community Group (CFL) —
was formed in 2014. It was strangely loyal to
Quinn but its main aims were to protect jobs and
the factories that Quinn had built in the area, to
keep the company from being broken up but
rather locally controlled for the benefit of the
community.
CFL organised meetings of up to ten thousand
protestors, claimed the support of 90,000, and
met politicians, local and national, and
management; but it got nowhere.
It initiated a campaign of protests and of
erecting posters and signs at all major road
junctions and entrances to all production sites
on both sides of the border. This was designed
to deter any prospective suitors, including the
circling vultures, that might consider diving in,
to cherry-pick individual businesses. It kept the
obstruction up for the next three years and
successfully prevented any sale of what the
community considered its assets.
CFL realised that to advance its objectives it
needed to put in place a management buyout.
This it engineered by approaching the previous
management team, led by former Quinn
Complint by Sen Quinn to Grd shows QIH ws investigting
llegtions of impropriety by McCffrey with Nu-spn
July 2022 21
directors, to set up an entity to buy the business
back. QBRC (Quinn Business Retention
Company) was formed for that purpose.
CFL dedicated itself to assisting in this
process which lasted almost a full year. Letters
were circulated to all local GAA football clubs
and businesses seeking support for the QBRC
bid [top image].
In 2014 one of CFL’s members arranged a
meeting in Dublin with a potential financier to
secure funding for QBRC. A facility of £115m was
agreed in principle, with Endless LLP in London,
to buy the Construction Products and Packaging
businesses in Derrylin — allowing them to
acquire the rest in due course. These two
divisions ultimately became QIH and then
Mannok.
One of the CFL members asked Liam
McCarey, former Quinn Group CEO, to facilitate
a local management buy-out. He called a
meeting for the next day at which all ex-directors
agreed QBRC would be a vehicle to get the
businesses back for the Quinns and the
Community. A spokesperson for CFL told Village
the reason for the obsessive focus on Quinn was
simple: “Quinn was our champion when the
State did nothing”.
When the bondholders saw this intervention
was imminent, to avoid further hassle, they
agreed to go along with the community’s vision
and pre-empt funding it had cleverly sourced.
They also insisted on an end to sabotage. This
was something Kevin Lunney was well
positioned to mediate.
When it became a reality that QBRC had
secured funding to buy part of the business,
three of the 43 Bondholders realised that they
hadn’t a hope of selling Quinn Glass.
It had dawned on them that eventually it
would be bought by QBRC as no outsider would
buy in such a hostile environment. Glass was the
jewel in the crown and was worth over €400m.
The three quick-thinking bondholders did a deal
with the other forty to buy their debt at a knock-
down price. The deal was so good that they
decided to fuel it with a covert donation to the
key non-community-nominee players in QBRC.
€4 million plus lucrative contracts were agreed.
CFL should have been following what was going
on, more closely [below left].
What happened couldn’t have worked without
QBRC’s involvement which depended on CFL’s
support, so it had to be timed during the window
when the incendiary local community was well
disposed to the new management.
The community was happy that its interest
was represented by the people it chose to
represent it, holding – it considered - in trust for
it.
Later it was agreed it would buy back
everything except Glass and Radiators. At the
time the Anglo-Celt editorialised that the
“formal £100m bid for the former Quinn Group
businesses (excluding Quinn Glass) to [the new]
Group is encouraging”.
In December Sean Quinn famously served a
tray of drinks to a meeting which had agreed
that McCarey would be CEO on a €500k annual
salary, Kevin Lunney would be COO at €345k;
and Quinn would be a consultant on €500k. 11%
of the Quinn Industrial Holdings would be
owned by QBRC and another 11% by the same
entity QBRC but in trust for its Directors who
described themselves as “sponsors”.
On the recommendation of Sean Quinn, Fine
Gael Councillor John McCartin, Ernie Fisher and
John Bosco O’Hagan, all with links to the
community, secured directorships and were the
sole shareholders in QBRC with its ambiguous
22% of what remained of the Quinn Group, QIH,
subsequently Mannok.
The future of the community rested with them.
An email from Liam McCarey said “As you
will see from our mission statement the sole
motivation driving this initiative is to protect the
economic wellbeing of this local area ensuring
that the former Quinn Group business is locally
managed and controlled for the benefit of this
community and most importantly kept “whole”
and not disposed of piecemeal”.
As far as CFL and the community was
concerned this was mission-accomplished.
How naïve they were. The wording of
commitments from the new management was
inadequate to guarantee the community control
or any stake in the profits – though arguably it
owns the stake as beneficiary.
Everything unravelled. The boys and Quinn
did not get on, and he was sacked, to CFL’s
horror. The directors have not been responsive
to the community and have not facilitated the
intended return to business for Sean Quinn. It is,
however, not clear whether it is possible to push
for this, given their fiduciary duties as directors
to QIH [ARE THEY DIRECTORS OF QIH/MANNOK
OF JUST OF ONE OF ITS SHAREHOLDERS?].
Tellingly, the Quinn Group business, worth
perhaps €5bn and employing 7000 in 2007
(which Sean Quinn claimed had expanded at a
rate of 30% annually since 1973), with pre-tax
profits of €632m, morphed following the sale of
most of its divisions, into one, Mannok, with
only 800 employees and EBITDA of only €25.8m
last year, albeit one that is well run and
expanding.
The company was being run – as to be fair is
ordinarily the case — in the financial interests of
shareholders rather than the long-term interest
of the community. On the occasion of the sale of
Quinn was our
champion when
the State did
nothing
each of Glass, Plastics and Radiators – none of
which was in the spirit of the agreement — some
of the senior executives, though not the
community nominees, achieved significant
pay-outs.
This dynamic is now being tested in the courts
by CFL, in one of the many cases that ultimately
mark the fracturing of a community.
Meanwhile, the owners of Mannok are
understood to be considering selling some or all
of their stake in what remains of the business as
it reportedly seeks funders for a planned €200m
investment to achieve ‘net zero’ sustainability
goals. Investment bank Evercore is investigating
financing options and it is understood that one
or more of the founding bondholders could be
seeking an exit.
4) alleged criminal delinquency on the part of
directors of Mannok.
In revenge for the perceived community sell-out,
CFL set up a Facebook group and publicised
some embarrassing things about McCarey,
who had been incumbent CEO of the Quinn
Group when the receiver was appointed, and
was then CEO of QIH (and now Mannok).
It alleged that he had diverted a £97,000
invoice from a UK-based business called
Nu-Span, that he and his wife, Marianne, owned,
for a steel delivery to QIH. CFL alleged there had
been no declaration of a Director’s interest and
while there had been an adjustment to the Quinn
account, no money had actually been paid in to
reconcile the invoice for £97,000.
It alleged on another occasion a €30k credit
note was issued to Nu-Span flooring without
proper consultation with the relevant divisional
manager, even though there was already
concern about the £97,000 and €30,000 was
three or four times the normal credit limit.
The man who drew attention to these
improprieties, Denis Doogan, a director of QIH
and a director of Nu-Span was sacked CHECK.
The women who furnished him with the
information changed their stories.
Sean Quinn also went to the Garda with
complaints that €167,063 in credit notes were
irregularly made out by Quinn Cement to its
biggest rival, Irish Cement, part of the CRH
Group.
Nevertheless the police north and south of
the border are not re-investigating Quinn’s
credible claims of potential fraud in Mannok
when it operated as QIH, despite him providing
evidence and several witness statements to
corroborate his explosive claims.
The shafting of Sean Quinn, their hero,
including by establishment attempts to paint
him as orchestrating violence and sabotage, the
outmanoeuvring of the Community’s attempts
to obtain a stake in the former Quinn Group for
itself and the apparent delinquency of many
associated with senior management of Mannok
are the reasons why anger is aflame in, what
remains still, Quinn country.

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