Here we go again, Feck off Quinns, you’re deluded, your time is up, you messed up, face the consequences, let Ireland move on !

Reg, you are one of the people being fooled by the Anglo propaganda that you and I are paying for. If the Quinn family’s proposal to pay the State 2.8 billion euros, save all the jobs and create 1700 additional jobs, HAD NOT BEEN INAPPROPRIATELY DISCARDED BY THOSE WITH VESTED INTERESTS, THERE WOULD BE NO INSURANCE LEVY, THE TAXPAYERS WOULD BE BILLIONS OF EUROS BETTER OFF AND THERE WOULD BE THOUSANDS MORE IN EMPLOYMENT TODAY.

THAT IS A FACT WHICH WILL BE PROVEN.

Stephanie, do you not understand that the Quinn family did everything possible to prevent the people of Ireland being burdened in any way and they offered to pay the State 2.8 billion, despite the fact that 2.3 billion of that was advanced by Anglo for market manipulation all of which is a matter of public record.
As for the Quinn supporters Reg, you and all the Quinn bashers really should google concerned irish citizens facebok page and Quinn/Anglo blogspot. I guarantee you that you will see another side to this story. Have a read about what Dr. Rory Hanley writes about Quinn supporters. Shame that you and so many are falling for the Anglo propaganda that we are all paying for.
IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE, WHY DONT YOU ASK TO SEE A COPY OF THE LEGAL/PROFESSIONAL ADVICE THAT THE FINANCIAL REGULATOR RELIED UPON TO PUT QUINN INSURANCE INTO ADMINISTRATION AND REPORT BACK ON JOURNAL WHEN YOU HAVE OBTAINED IT. I WONT HOLD MY BREATH.

Gearoid, the losses at Quinn Insurance in the two years before the Quinn family lost control were the best part of one billion euros. Quinn was screwed before even if he never heard of Anglo.

They offered to pay the state 2.8 billion. Ha.

Sure I could offer to pay the state 2.8 billion as well. Easy to offer what you don’t have.

Another Gilheany defending the Quinns. Hmmmm coincidence?

Reg and Paul , where do I begin? The alleged losses in Quinn Insurance was not losses atall as they were solely down to the fact that the reserves were set at two and a half times that of any other insurer and the write down of property prices and Paul, how exactly is the current strategy performing :
I would say that the failure to recoup one cent and the squandering of millions of taxpayers money plus the loss of over 1500 jobs is not exactly success.

Have a look at Concerned IRish Citizens facebook page and Quinn/Anglo blogspot if you want to know the FACTS

Well ok, have an enquiry into the whole lot and finish this whole debacle once and for all. Remember that the administrators said that the company was very well run months after taking it over. Also remember that Liberty was in effect gifted this company – they bought it for €1, with a lot of the bad claims being left with the administrators. They said there would be no more redundancies….. They also were not interested in the British business, let the business run down until it was worth nearly nothing and are now going to reenter the British market – probably getting this business at a knockdown price….. Oh yes, we are all being played for fools…..but not necessarily by Quinn.

Cara, whether it appeared to be well run or not months before is irrelevant. What elderfield discovered was that assets held in reserve by Quinn insurance had holds on them from other parts of the Quinn group, making them invalid as reserves, thus the stated position of the company was entirely false.

This isn’t a case of a healthy bank account being ignored because of some conspiracy against the Quinns – it’s like the bank discovering you have another mortgage secured on your house secretly, invalidating their security.

Mike, if you are correct in saying that the Quinn’s left a hole of 1.65billion in the insurance company, can you explain why one of the administrators went before a High Court judge for months after administration and said that there would be NO call on the Insurance Compensation Fund.

Do you not think that it is a bit strange that the Quinn family are repeatedly calling for an inquiry and all the other parties are running for cover, including the Government. Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.

Graham, you could learn a lot by googling Quinn/Anglo blogspot and Concerned Irish Citizens facebook page. All is not what it appears.

Gearoid, cry me a river. Your ranting is getting tedious.

Finbar, are you so gullible that you do not realize that the story of the cake was a distraction that Anglo fed the media so as to distract from the mess that they are making of their entire strategy on Quinn. Well done Anglo, another goof who believed your nonsense.

Gearoid. I agree with everything you say. Unfortunately a lot of comment on this comes from badly read, ill informed people who do not bother to look past the Anglo propaganda. The saying “none so blind as those who don’t want to see” comes to mind.

+1 Alison, It seems that the propaganda machine has started early today, it’s a shame so few of us are open minded enough to see exactly what is happening. I’m beginning to wonder if it is worthwhile staying in this country between the level of incompetence in government and the lack of will amongst the population to challenge the status quo.

Oh. So the €100,000 personal cake “put through” the company didn’t happen. It’s just Anglo spinning this story??

I’d say €100k cake is unreal in fairness.

Finbar, I despair when I read such nonsense. Who do you think is paying the enormous legal fees for Anglo in attempting to finish off the Quinns so that the corruption at the heart of the establishment would not be exposed in the big case. Who do you think is paying for the enormous PR and security fees for Anglo fat cats including several security guards who accompany these fat cats every day in the High Court even when they have no business being there. Did I not read recently that Anglo had conceded that they had spent 80 Million euros in legal fees in pursuit of Quinn and WHAT HAS BEEN RECOUPED TO DATE-YES YOU MAY BE COPPING ON-NOT ONE RED CENT.

By the way , the truth will come out and the corruption at the heart of the establishment and those who tried to cover it up will be exposed.

Have you a source for this? The british arm of Quinn insurance was regulated by the Irish financial regulator so cant see what it’d have to do with the uk govt

Cement monopolists?? Quinn broke the monopoly(CRH etc) and price fixing in the cement and glass business’(IGB) in this country. And brought cheaper car, life and home insurance to us also!! He bet too big on a insider dealing scam (Anglo, and let greed lead him by the nose certainly), but your comment is ill-informed at the least, and ignorant at best.

RP, you’re right about the cement monopoly. You’re also right that they gave us cheaper insurance, but only because they had an unsustainable business model in which insufficient reserves were being maintained to pay future claims – this was in effect like an enormous pyramid scheme which was destined to crash at some point as it couldn’t keep growing indefinitely.

His insurance pricing was a ponzi scam and his cement business was a built on basing his operations in Northern Ireland and exploiting British government grant schemes (designed to support the ailing economy there).
However he used those grants to subsidise himself in the Republic at the expense of operators in the Republic.

Not that anyone should have sympathy for the incumbent dominators of the the market in the Republic, Quinn was still monopolising market inequalities and benefitted from the monopolised market in the Republic to his own gain. Far from white as snow.

And insofar as an insider dealing scam goes – I think Quinn is innocent of that. If he knew what a crooked mess Anglo was internally he would never have bet the farm on it.

Everyone in this country’s insurance has increased and will do so for over ten years , to compensate the fact that Quinn Direct did not keep the legal required reserves. Cheers Sean. . …

Ten years would be a blessing – the latest estimate is 20-30 years of paying the Quinn levy.

It’s not a case of giving it to ‘them’. It about giving us all the knowledege we need to find out what is going on here. There’s a cover-up with the whole Quinn-direct scenario and I don’t like the fact that there are fat cats tip-toeing away with bagfulls of money unscathed, when all these people are losing their jobs. Why is this happening? I for one, want to know.

Cover up? Don’t think you need to do that in Ireland! Sure it’s just a laugh!

no, it’ll cost us the taxpayers millions.

Tommy,
I believe these people need our support to get a full inquiry into the administration of Quinn Insurance and think you should follow the lead of the supporters who know the callibre of the Quinn family and are prepared to stand up to injustice. Mickey Harte is a man who has seen injustice at its worst and I’m sure he would tell you both sides of every story should be told or the people with power can tell you anything.

Go back to bed Jack and get out the right side next time.

The upper hands has all the say and all thing relating to decisions…. That’s just a MASSIVE COVER UP.

€2000 an hour? Don’t be stupid.

@YF I think you’ll find that the deficit of €1.65bn is due to the fact that Quinn insurance didn’t hold adequate reserves to meet future insurance claims. Quinn’s supporters continuously harp on about the insurance business as being profitable – this was never the case. The only reason the company reported profits is because they released reserves when they shouldn’t have!

Des,
I’m not stupid. Murdich mc Killop was paid almost 1000 euro an hour for his ‘expertise’. (And I believe the number of hours of expertise were substantial) He must be quite the expert when this is the end result.

Any proof of this Y.F.? Some wild accusations being made there so I’m sure we’ll all be delighted to see where you getting this information from. Or are you making it up?

Exactly. What Y.F. fails to acknowledge about the Quinns is that they broke the rules. The reason you pay insurance is so that if you need to make a claim there is sufficient in reserve to pay out.
There is more to insurance that just getting the certificate in the post.

@ Des Doris Y.F. said up to €1000 an hour. This has been quite well documented in some of the media. One such “well paid” employee was Murdoch McKillop. Google it if you want to…..
The fact is there was a viable plan, which was due to pay back the debt over 7 years and create 1700 jobs. This was developed with BDO and passed by Deutsche Bank, so it was viable. What is happening now? 900 redundancies lost previously. 285 redundancies now. Quinn Group managers being let go under secrecy agreements. €80million spent by Anglo on lawyers against Quinn. How many million on PR against Quinn? Anglo have signed a contract with a Russian recovery company to recover assets. Anglo are paying them €155milliion for this honour – the value of these assets at their peak in 2008 was €500 million. Another point about this is that Anglo’s claim over these debts is in dispute as they were not the lenders for these companys.
A public enquiry into this is needed.

@Darren Irish Independed Sunday Sept 18 2001
“The man being paid €900 and hour…”

Darren,
I’ve given you the name. There’s a search engine on you computer called ‘google’. I’m sure you’ll find I’m not making it up.

Sean
, Quinn did break the rules, and was punished for same. He had to step down as a director of the company. What ensued was Matthew Elderfield’s decision. Why did he make it? Was he right? Why won’t he share his decision making skills and advice with the public? Who advised him? How could he make such a drastic decision in 3 days? ……and now we know the detrimental effects of this.
Spells Public Inquiry to me.

Fiona,
I replied to you below. I won’t copy and paste

Y.F.
Perhaps I should have been more specific. You stare they had adequate reserves and more than other insurance companies. Where are you getting these details from?

@ Darren “The Central Bank Insurance Statistical Review illustrates that QIL’s claims were reserved at twice the industry average, and both the current and historic management reports of QIL prove the effectiveness of the claims model. Furthermore, the company’s accounts and reserves were audited on an annual basis by the best accounting and actuarial firms in the UK and Ireland.” 26th August. Irish Independent.

Its just ridiculous reading this.

When the financial collapse happened people were screaming about why the Financial Regulator hadn’t done his job properly and checked out our banks and financial companies. So we got a new guy in (Matthew Elderfield) and when he did check and found major irregularities in the way Quinn Direct was being run and put it into administration we get people screaming about an over zealous regulator.

No wonder this country is in the state its in. Talk about wanting everything at the same time.

@Toyna that piece in the Independent was written by Sean Quinn’s daughter Colette.

I’m not sure where she’s getting the information wrt the company holding
twice the industry average. One important thing to bear in mind with an insurance company is that it can appear to be profitable and to have adequate reserves provided premium income is rising faster than claims are being paid. This is what Quinn was doing in the UK. It entered a mature market and tried to gainer key share by under pricing policies. However this falls apart when claims start to roll in meaning an insurance company can be liquid but at the same time insolvent.

As for the employment case which Colette also refers to in her article – it would have been cheaper for the State to give 5,000 people €500k each…

YF its totally disingenuous to state that the regulator moved on Quinn after just 3 days.
In actual fact the regulator had been working closely with Quinn for several months to put a recovery plan in place – he was well aware of the precarious financial state of the company and only made the final decision to apply for administration after it was revealed by Quinn that €450 million of reserves had been illegally used as collateral to secure further loans, effectively rendering QI hopelessly insolvent.

It is also not true to state that QI had sufficient reserves in the bank at this time – whilst they had a certain amount of cash available (as is normal for insurance companies, who take premiums up front but only pay claims down the line sometime) they were legally obliged to maintain a 150% cash reserve, which they did not have.

Mattoid,
The fact remains that Quinn had suffecient and legal reserves in the insurance company on the day (and for quite a time prior to) the administrators being sent in. Whether these reserves were taking the correct form in the eyes of the regulator may be another story. If Elderfield was unhappy with the access to the reserves, surely he could have worked with Quinn in making sure this was done, instead of taking the drastic, and as we see now, disastrous decision that he did.
Elderfield may have had dealings with Quinn prior to the take-over, but it is perfectly accurate to say he spent 3 days examining the books, before sending the company into administration. This type of rash decision cannot be justified by his ‘word’, given the serious and catastrophic results of same. He refuses to give any proof that he received legal advice. Why is this? I’m assuming that legal advice would be essential when dealing with a company of this size (or any company) If Elderfield has nothing to hide, why won’t he talk about it?
This is why a public inquiry is due on this. I’m assuming Elderfield won’t be pushing for one.

YF, your loyalty to the Quinns, as demonstrated by your dogged adherence to their version of events, is commendable, however the reality is that Mathew Elderfield did everything possible both before and after the application for administration to work with Quinn and save the company, whilst still protecting the policy holders.

You may find the following of interest as an alternative to the Quinnspin:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/emmet-oliver-quinn-insurance-was-indulged-for-far-too-long-2120420.html

Mattoid,
If ever I’m looking for a commendation, I know where to go.
With reference to a discussion we had last week, the 80 million euro, of our money, spent by Anglo on legal proceedings in pursuit of Quinn (so far) was in the Irish Independent on Sat 3rd Nov under a title ‘From richest man to common prisoner’

Mattoid & Fiona,
The reason I want an inquiry is because there are far too many uncertainties and mis-truths being pushed on us from the start. The central statistics issued by the Central bk. showed that in 2009 Quinn Direct had the highest reserves of any insurance company in the country. Judge Kearns acknowledged this in 2011 but said that he had been heavily influenced by a letter he received from Michael Noonan (esquire), stating that the administrators were taking the best possble action for the state. This was when the compensation fund went up to 600 million. So, it still makes no sense to my why Elderfield moved in when/like he did. Why did Noonan send this letter? What was his motive? Was he really working in the best interest of the state? It has since (ie yesterday) been proven that it was most detrimental for the state. Who’s going to answer questions about it now? Who is answerable? Inquiry Inquiry Inquiry

Culm, it’s all a big conspiracy by the evil Dublin meeja.

Are you for real Gearoid – the Quinn family have never engaged in spin??

Clearly the high court did not agree with your assessment.

For the record, I would welcome an inquiry into the whole episode to get all the facts out there – there have certainly been some highly questionable actions on the part of Anglo, but the Quinn family are far from the angels you are making them out to be.

Good old Sean. The poor wee simple man, done down by the evil meeja up in Dublin. Share bejaysus he just loved a wee game of cards. He never had a super duper mansion and was duped by the city slickers. They should put a super levy on the hicks in wee Cavan and let them pay for the crimes of the poor wee simple Quinns. Lovely Quinns, Shute they’d doff their caps to us on their way to the mansion. Go away.

Y.F.
Perhaps I should have been more specific. You state they had adequate reserves and more than other insurance companies in Ireland at the time. Where are you getting these details from?

Darren, this is public knowledge.
Quinn direct had more reserves than the other insurance companies, but this wasn’t good enough for Elderfield. He ‘felt’ that Quinn Direct should have more reserves than the others.

Darren, If Quinn was at fault for the hole of 1.6bn, why on earth would his family be pleading for a public inquiry? It doesn’t make sense….

Y.F.
I’ve never seen a breakdown of reserves held by individual insurance company published. As you say this is public knowledge, can you post a link to where this can be validated? Don’t think a breakdown is available on the central banks website.

Darren,
I’m not here to argue. Tonya (above) has given the information you need. I’m sure you could find the facts if you looked indept into the whole case. That is what a public inquiry would do. All we would have to do is watch the truth unfold. I hope we get this opportunity.

At last, the Government is beginning to realize that they were conned by the Anglo fat cats again. Frank Feighan on Shannonside not talking about an inquiry. Hope this time he delivers.

typo in last comment-should read -Frank Feighan NOW calling for an inquiry,

“government run hate campaign”?
Do you think the government control all the media outlets in the state?
The Quinns themselves have been pretty adept at spin don’t you think?

Mattoid, my response to you was erronously posted further up the page.

I hope Anglo and the Government are going to reward you well for your support Mattoid.
I suppose you be right
They are, very loose when it comes to signing checks and loan agreements on behalf of the Irish taxpayer.