This story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 26/08/2012
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
SEÁN Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man, now claims that he is down to his last €300.
The fallen billionaire says the cash is all he has to his name – and that he is able to survive only thanks to the charity of family members.
The claims are made in Quinn’s official declaration of bankruptcy, filed two weeks ago in Dublin.
In it, the man once valued at €4bn says he has an income of just €1,056 per month. He also claims the only other assets to which he can lay claim are a half-share in three cars, 50% of a small forestry plot and two pension funds worth a combined €200,000.
He declares no ownership of any property – or of any valuable jewellery, electronics or antiques.
Overall, Quinn declares that his income falls well short of his €2,880 monthly outgoings – which he does not break down in any way. He says, however, that he receives a monthly top-up from unnamed family members of €1,600 per month.
There is no record of any income from State benefits. Thus, even when the charity from his relatives is included, this would leave him facing a monthly shortfall of €223.
All in all, the business magnate once rated among the world’s wealthiest people now paints a picture of a man living in penury, unable to meet his bills and surviving only on the goodness of his loved ones.
However, the bankruptcy declaration does not reflect the fact that Quinn and his wife, Patricia, still live in a 14,700sq.ft mansion that boasts an indoor golf simulator, a putting green overlooking a 15m swimming pool, a sunken hot tub, a Jacuzzi pool, a cinema and a snooker room.
Quinn continues to enjoy the luxurious property, which contains seven en-suite bedrooms, a luxurious leisure area and an exercise mezzanine overlooking the pool.
The home also boasts its own bar, a grand piano, a library, a lift, a built-in dog house, balconies and a large deck overlooking Lough Aghavoher. Outside, at the end of a covered walkway, is a nine-car garage.
However, Quinn’s sworn statement of affairs, which has just been added to his High Court bankruptcy file, suggests that there are only three cars to which he can lay claim.
He lists a half-share in three vehicles worth a combined €71,000. The fleet consists of a 2004 Cavan-registered Mercedes Benz S600 (€6,000) a Northern-registered Mercedes SCL600 (€60,000) and a Northern-registered Range Rover (€5,000).
The statement of affairs shows that Quinn has spent almost all his remaining cash since he provided Belfast’s High Court with a list of assets in November 2011 when he sought and failed to declare bankruptcy in the UK.
At that time – with control of his businesses already handed over to his children – he had just over €11,000 in three bank accounts.
But, since then, the accounts – in the Bank of Ireland, Cavan town, the Bank of Ireland, Lisnaskea, Co. Fermanagh, and Ulster Bank, Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan – have been emptied.
The statement – signed by Quinn on August 10 – lists a monthly income of just €1056.32, derived from pension payments, income bonds and benefits.
Quinn – who is likely to follow his son to jail next month – has an Irish Life pension fund and a separate fund with Quinn Life Pensions, worth a combined figure of just under €200,000.
It does not appear that he has yet drawn down any of these pensions.
Quinn does not list any property assets other than a 50% share in six parcels of forestry land close to his home. In all, his stake in the land is worth €25,000. During his failed Northern Ireland bankruptcy attempt, Quinn told the court that his home had been built and was owned by his five children.
But land registry records suggest that the property is owned by a fully-owned subsidiary of the Slieve Russell Hotel – a Quinn business that was taken over by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, in April 2011.
This means that Quinn’s right to live on the premises could, in theory, be contested by the bank, which has held a charge on the property since 2007.
However, Quinn may have to move out soon enough anyway – his daughter, Aoife, recently told the Irish Mail on Sunday that she feared her father was headed for jail alongside her brother, Seán Jr, for contempt of court.
She suggested that it was up to the IBRC to comply with the Quinns’ demands in terms of recovering assets from around the world – an attitude that appears to suggest there will be no escaping a jail term for the family patriarch.
Last month, Quinn’s son, Seán Jr, and his nephew, Peter Darragh Quinn, were sentenced to threemonth jail sentences for contempt.
A warrant was issued for Peter Darragh Quinn when he did not turn up at the High Court in Dublin for the hearing. He was later photographed alongside his father at a GAA match in Fermanagh.
In June, Judge Elizabeth Dunne ruled that the three men misled the courts and had acted in a ‘blatant, dishonest and deceitful’ manner.
She added that the contempt was outrageous and they were evasive and uncooperative in their evidence.
The behaviour of all three was ‘as far removed from the concept of honour and respectability as it is possible to be,’ she added.
This week, after reporting losses for the first half of the year, IBRC chief executive Mike Aynsley rejected claims by the Quinn family that the bank had a vendetta against them.
He said the bank was not being vindictive in pursuing the Quinns in the courts but was doing what was necessary to recover the €2.88bn it is owed.
