Ballyconnell businessman, Sean Quinn, has followed up on letters he sent to every TD and Senator last month reporting what he calls, "Irish government cover-ups", by sending similar letters to MLAs in the North. Sean Quinn senior is originally from Teemore just over the Cavan border. He captained the Fermanagh senior county football team; made Derrylin his business base from which he expanded into Cavan and across the world; and it was in Northern Ireland where he was originally declared bankrupt. Disputing his residency in the North, the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation later secured his bankruptcy in the Republic, which saw him unable to start up in business again for 12 years.
In his letter to members of the Oireacthtas, and now MLAs, which has been seen by Northern Sound, Mr Quinn said the "overwhelming response to his book called 'In His Own Words' "encouraged" him to write now. Problems arose he writes, when financial authorities in Ireland allowed Anglo Irish Bank to support their share price, which, he says is "illegal in every country in the world". He writes that an administrator was appointed to Quinn Insurance in 2010, despite the business holding €1.1 billion in cash - the highest reserves of any insurance business in the country at that time.
"Within days", he writes, an Anglo Irish Bank executive, informed an accountancy firm that Anglo were going to take over the whole Quinn Group. In 2010, Mr Quinn said he met with government ministers when the businessman proved to them the strength of the group and a "takeover was stopped for a full year". Under the succeeding 2011 government, however, the takeover happened despite there being, Mr Quinn writes, "no legal or financial grounds" for doing so. The issues he highlights in his letters has already been written about in detail, with supporting evidence, in his autobiography.
The letter to TDs and senators goes on in a similar vein until he says Gardaí interviewed him and all his family and found that they "had no involvement whatsoever" in the illegal shares support scheme at Anglo. Mr Quinn says he has reported other financial fraud, and provided a list of 14 names of people prepared to give evidence to support his claims to gardaí but, none of the 14 have ever been contacted.
He concludes by writing "If the blatant illegality and fraud relating to the takeover of the Quinn companies, which cost the taxpayer approximately 5.5 billion euro is covered up, what conclusion can Irish people come to." In his letter to MLAs, Mr Quinn said he supplied the names of the witnesses prepared to give evidence to support his claims of fraud to the PSNI but, they also failed to investigate or make contact with them. He copied a letter of complaint sent to the PSNI via his solicitor last year over the matter in his recent correspondence to MLAs.
