At the height of the Celtic Tiger economic boom, Seán Quinn was Ireland’s richest man
By Julian Fowler
BBC News NI south-west reporter
Former billionaire businessman Seán Quinn has said his family had doubts if he had been involved in abducting and torturing an ex-colleague.
Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney was kidnapped in September 2019 and seriously assaulted.
He was found 22 miles away on a road in County Cavan and taken to hospital.
Three men were jailed for the attack but the judge said the highest sentence would be reserved for the unnamed “paymaster” who funded the crime.
Mr Quinn has said that he believes the judge was referring to him.
He was once Ireland’s richest man, but was stripped of his business empire after a disastrous bet on shares in Anglo Irish Bank.
Mr Quinn has written a book in response to what he describes as the “continuous character assassination” and the “disgraceful insinuations” that he had some involvement in Mr Lunney’s abduction.
He told BBC News NI those who don’t believe him “can believe whatever they like” but there was no “scintilla of evidence” that he had any “hand, act or part in it”.
However, he said some of his own family questioned him.
“After Kevin Lunney was abducted… the air got very contaminated and even some of my own family – my brother and sisters and some of my kids – were saying, ‘Daddy were you involved?’,” Mr Quinn said.
“They had some doubts that maybe I had something to do with it and some doubts that maybe I was responsible for the illegal loans; maybe I was responsible for some of the sabotage. So there was doubts by many people at that.”
Image source, BBC NI Spotlight
Kevin Lunney was tied up, had one leg broken and was slashed on the face and chest with a knife
If you want to know why Seán Quinn remains so popular in the border communities of Fermanagh and Cavan you just need to look at the thousands of jobs he created in what would otherwise be an economic backwater.
He says at the height of his success his businesses were paying €1m (£0.86m) a day in wages.
Who is Seán Quinn?
The self-made billionaire built a small family quarry in County Fermanagh into a huge empire.
Its various arms included manufacturing, power generation, financial services, property development and a string of hotels including the four-star Slieve Russell resort in County Cavan.
His huge wealth made him the UK’s 12th-richest man in 2007 and he lived a life of luxury.
But in December 2011 he walked into a Belfast courtroom and declared himself bankrupt, owing more than £2bn to Anglo Irish Bank.
When the bank took control of his businesses, it ousted all the senior Quinn family members and senior executives on day one in a process called “de-Quinning” by locals.
He has consistently condemned the attacks on those now running his former businesses.
There have been books, documentaries, and hundreds of newspaper articles written about the rise and fall of his business empire but Mr Quinn says his book tells his side of the story for the first time.
Image source, Rick Crowley
The Slieve Russell Hotel and golf course was part of the Quinn hotel empire
The publicity for the book says Seán Quinn admits his own mistakes but he told BBC News NI he does not see himself as the master of his own downfall.
“I bought the shares in the bank because I thought they were cheap, so I was wrong. I’m not denying that I was the man that recommended buying the shares in the bank – no question about that – but I wasn’t involved in illegal share dealing,” he said.
“The 600-odd million pounds we lost on them was crazy, maybe madness on my part for buying so many shares, fine. But it wasn’t a problem for the Quinn Group – I mean, it was only a year and a half’s profit.
“The problem was, I blamed nobody for the first few years; I just took it on the chest.
“But then as the blame game – one thing after another, finishing up with Kevin Lunney’s abduction – it went on and on and on. I was turning out to be the biggest criminal in the history of the state.”
Image source, Pacemaker
Mr Lunney was abducted in outside County Fermanagh home before being beaten and left at the side of a road in the Republic of Ireland
Mr Quinn admits the book may add to the tension in the community but he feels that “the truth needs to come out”.
“I think that burying everything under the sand is not ideal,” he added.
“I think the truth needs to come out and I’m telling the truth about what happened and why it happened.”
In the book, Mr Quinn writes that he never felt like the richest man in Ireland – so how does he feel now?
“I feel close to the poorest. But the first third of my life I was poor, the middle third of my life I was rich and the last third of my life, give or take, it looks like I will be poor – but I’m resilient.”
‘Money’s not important’
For a man who enjoys playing a weekly game of cards, he muses “whatever cards you’re dealt you play them and I’m happy to play whatever cards are dealt”.
“I never felt when I was seen as the richest man in Ireland – I never felt like that. When I’m poor now, I don’t feel the poorest man in Ireland,” he said.
“I think I’ve achieved a lot.
“I think the factories and the building and the thousands of people that helped me to achieve that deserve great credit.
“I believe I was captain of that team. I think it would be there in history.
“I think the people that destroyed it – history won’t be kind to them and, really, that’s what it’s all about.
“Money’s not important to me. Money never, ever was important to me. But achievement was – I love people to achieve something.”
Mr Quinn said he would like to be remembered as “a good citizen and a good businessman, and an honest man”.
“Money’s no good to me in the grave but my reputation is and that’s why I wrote the book and, as I said, I can fade into the shadows now when I’ve done that.”
He believes the final chapter has been written but it is unlikely that the Seán Quinn story is finished.
