FORMER BILLIONAIRE SEÁN Quinn has written to TDs asking them to investigate the takeover of his company in 2011.
The businessman says in his letter to members of the Oireachtas that he has been vilified for “long enough” and felt compelled to write to the deputies to clear his name of claims he says have been made against him over the last 15 years.
In the four-page letter, seen by The Journal, Quinn said claims he has made regarding the take over of his company have been “brushed under the carpet” over the years.
Quinn, who was once the richest person in Ireland, asked the TDs to investigate the matter and bring it to the public’s attention.
In the letter, states that has been left “penniless for the past 12 years”, adding that he has been “unable to fight my corner regarding the takeover of our companies”.
In 2008, Quinn was had amassed a fortune worth more than €4.7 billion through his business ventures that spanned multiple industries, particularly insurance.
In 2011, Quinn went bankrupt after the Quinn Group experienced massive losses after the firm gambled on shares in Anglo Irish Bank through a financial instrument called contracts for differences (CFDs).
In 2012, Quinn was found guilty of contempt of court after efforts to put assets out of reach of Anglo Irish Bank and sentenced to nine weeks in jail.
In September of this year, Quinn told RTÉ’s Prime Time he made decisions that were “stupid” but “totally legal”.
Quinn has always claimed that he could have paid back money to Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (formerly Anglo Irish Bank) if he was given the opportunity.
However, IBRC took over Quinn’s business, with the businessman previously stating that the IBRC was pursuing a “vendetta” against him and his family.
The Quinns and their supporters claim that Quinn had a plan to pay back Anglo but the bank would not accede to this request.
He claims in his letter that there were no grounds to put Quinn Insurance into administration, stating that despite meeting with government representatives and assuring them, without notice, the Quinn Group was taken over.
In the letter to TDs, Quinn also states that attempts to link him to Kevin Lunney’s abduction and attack are “pure evil”.
In September 2019, Lunney, who was one of the directors of Mannok at the time, which was formerly Quinn Industrial Holdings, was bundled into the boot of an Audi near his home and driven to a container where he was threatened and told to resign as a director of Quinn Industrial Holdings and to put a stop to litigation with which he was involved north and south of the border.
His attackers stripped him to his boxer shorts, doused him in bleach, broke his leg with two blows of a wooden bat, beat him on the ground, cut his face and scored the letters QIH into his chest with a Stanley knife.
They left him bloodied, beaten and shivering on a country road at Drumcoghill in Co Cavan where he was discovered by a man driving a tractor.
Following a trial at the Special Criminal Court in 2021, Alan O’Brien (40), of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin 3, Darren Redmond (27), from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin 3 and a man known as YZ, were convicted of false imprisonment and intentionally causing harm to Lunney.
Quinn has continuously denied any involvement in the incident.
He has also stated publicly that he doesn’t believe there was a “paymaster” behind the abduction and torture Lunney.
He concludes the letter by stating that he is “more than happy to stand over” everything he has written in his recent book. Quinn said he is not hoping to benefit financially from any inquiry into the takeover.
With reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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