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PB October/November 2023 October/November 2023 27
S
eán Quinn, once worth $6bn, is a write-o ; destroyed by
bankruptcy and jail, two books (one now written by himself) and
a documentary, and his own indiscipline in business and more
recently in spinning his narrative and handling journalists. He is
the narcissistic author of his own downfall and sustained
disgrace.
Prejudiced national media don’t investigate
Of course the national media, indi erent to the border counties, never
warmed to the ‘greedy’ outsider with the folksy taste in card games, and
have taken an unprofessional lack of investigative interest in his narrative
about Mannok, which now runs his empire.
What really happened
So last year, Village tried to fi nd out what happened in Quinn Country. We
came to some unorthodox conclusions. Quinn’s new book sort of implies
many of the same conclusions but he just doesn’t have the wit or generosity
to make clear in the narrative the facts that should have elevated his
position or at least mitigated his ignominy.
He seems, as has been reported, to have no particular focus on, or
perhaps awareness of, the truth. Having promised that his fi rst interview
about his new now-bestselling book, Seán Quinn in my own words’ would
be with Village, he would have been better o sticking to his word. He might
have found that the truth would serve his cause better than the cascade of
media antagonism that his book brought back into the discourse. Of course,
then the media have been more than happy to run stories about his sweary
fractiousness when interviewed, to contradict Quinn’s claim never to have
had a conversation with Lunney’s torturer, ‘Dublin Jimmy’, and of course to
recite with dripping disdain Quinn’s denials of involvement. There is a
special face pulled by journalists who haven’t done proper research when
they are on the bandwagon and an easy target is on the run.In the latest,
probably last, round the easy target gaslit journalists, reaping the contempt
of the NUJ, and splenetically ventilated, “if you were asking would I rather
see John McCartin or Liam McCa rey [current Mannok bosses] beaten up
than Kevin Lunney then the answer is yes”.
This egocentric obnoxiousness gives the media the charter they need to
ignore allegations that Kevin Lunney was himself implicated in sabotage
and violence and — as published in the March 2022 edition of Village — that
there is extraordinary delinquency, including apparent fraud, on the part
of other board members of Mannok also. They never mention the Cavan
Fermanagh Leitrim Community Group that considers the revamped post-
Quinn operation was legally bound to deliver for it, rather than just — as it
is now clear Quinn saw it — for “Seán Quinn”. His book doesn’t even mention
Quinn Spins
Another punch-pulling book, another media
disaster for Seán Quinn: truth unclear, as
media continue recklessly to suggest
he was torture paymaster
By Michael Smith
that the community group is suing the company and its directors now it is
clear the company is being run in the interests of neither Quinn nor the
community.
Quinn has had a year, a book and a platform of interviews to ventilate all
these issues, and hasn’t.
The counter narrative is complex and readers are invited to return to
earlier Village pieces to get the full story, insofar as we could put it together.
Harassment
Despite intense scrutiny, 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 pre-dated the Lunney torture. There
is no evidence of Mr Big or a ‘Paymaster’ waiting to be taken down by inept
o cialdom. This accounts for the teary-eyed self-rightousness of Seán
Quinn when addressing these particular allegations. It’s sincere.
Who carried out sabotage?
A complaint to the PSNI was lodged in March 2022 by Seán and Patrick
McGovern describing acts of sabotage against the property of Mannok then
known as QIL, including an electricity substation and electricity poles, and
putting acid into machinery, between 2011 and 2014 with a view to
discouraging 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
perpetrators of sabotage in the period when Kevin Lunney and the current
board were still ousted from o ce.
It claims Kevin and Tony Lunney told Bernard McGovern, a boxer and a
minor with mental health issues, 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 QIL
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 beat up Kevin Lunney outside Applegreen in
Ballyconnell after his father was let go from QIL.
He was given a sentence of three and a half years from which he was
recently released. But he claims he was abused by the Lunneys during the
substation-sabotage débacle.
While some believe the appalling Lunney beating was intimidation by
people with a vested interest, others say it is because Lunney and Dublin
Jimmy fell out over a fi nancial issue or, and Quinn emphasises this, because
the perpetrators demanded the cessation of legal actions, because people
are aggrieved at the legal actions being pursued against them for their roles
NEWS
28 October/November 2023 October/November 2023 PB
in sabotage and indeed earlier intimidation of Lunney himself.
All this may suggest there was no other paymaster for the Lunney beating,
though in 2021 the Special Criminal Court, apparently uninformed, said:
“The mystery ‘paymaster’ who funded the abduction and assault of Kevin
Lunney could face life imprisonment if convicted”.
In June 2022, the Garda launched a major security operation focused
on Kevin Lunneyand his fellow directors at Mannok after receiving what the
press reported as “reliable intelligence” that some of them were being
targeted for attack.
It is notably the case that many of the stories about ongoing intimidation
are traceable to John McCartin and the Irish Independent, in particular its
journalists Paul Williams and Rodney Edwards.
On the other hand, the FermanaghNewsOnLine website noted that:
“following the raid on Seán Quinn’s family home in April last year, when one
of the garda o cers conducting the search told Seán 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 28 April 2022,
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”.
To say the least, here are wildly di erent views of what is going on with
the Garda, in Quinn Country.
The circumstances of Quinn’s bankruptcy at the
hands of Anglo-Irish Bank and the Irish state
Conventional wisdom blames the recklessness of Seán Quinn and it was
prime, 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 fi nancial stability/risk management gave evidence in
2015 to a case taken by the Quinn family against IBRC, and Seán 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 fi nance, 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 other 10 per cent.
This conversion of the Contracts for Di erence had the e ect of preventing
a fl ood 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
Quiet 2022 settlement by Centrl Bnk with pst nd
current Quinn Group/Mnnok hed, McCffrey
High Court proceedings indicte
lterntive letter from Deprtment of
Finnce incorrectly implied Anglo didn’t
lend for CFDs
resolving this extraordinary illegality.
Nolan said that a draft letter dated 3 February 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 di erences 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.
Consequences of apparent illegality of share-
support scheme
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 benefi ted from Quinn’s support and, indirectly therefore, so had the
State.
If the support was illegal but had been approved by the State then 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. For this self-
serving reason of course Quinn himself emphasises this grievance in his
book and media outings.
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 McCa rey 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 fi nance share-buying in Anglo Irish Bank.
In 2008, Quinn Insurance was levied a record €3.25 million fi ne by the
Financial Regulator though in the circumstances of its dire state, and
compromisingly for all involved, it was never collected. A related Central
Bank judge-chaired inquiry into suspected participation by Directors Liam
McCa rey and Kevin Lunney in breaches of regulations relating to accounting
and controls was uniquely settled without comment, 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 allegedly ultimately — improperly —
being the Quinn Group.
