Quinn plays blame game to the faithful
By Paul Neilan
Beleaguered former billionaire Sean Quinn was an outspoken guest of honour at the launch of the Ballinamore Family Festival in Co Leitrim yesterday.
The former Quinn Group chief was due on stage on High St at 4pm, but, like any good showman, he kept his public waiting.During the delay, balloons escaped tethering, children were ice-creamed, the hurling was half-watched, and pints were sunk on the thronged pavement in front of Bobby Joe’s, Shortt’s, Kavanagh’s... and singer Mick Flavin’s tour van.
When the 65-year-old took the stage, he aimed a broadside at the past two governments, Anglo Irish Bank, the end of his tenure at Quinn Direct, the media, all to great hooplah from the assembled 2,000.
After the usual problems with the PA system and Flavin’s rousing Amhrán na bhFiann, under a stage bedecked in late-summer sunshine, Quinn wasted no time.
After thanking organisers, he recounted memories of playing cards in the local hostelries.
“I used to go to Freddie’s, I used to get robbed of a Sunday night. But I only thought I got robbed... when you see what happened since.”
The gag went down a treat, but was just a marker for the theme of the next 20 minutes.
“We certainly made mistakes, lots of mistakes,” he admitted. “There’s no way I should have invested so much money in Anglo Irish Bank, but I didn’t know what I was doing.
“But successive Irish governments ran a company called Ireland Ltd. Their costs increased three times that of inflation. In my limited experience in business, no country can do it, it’s not feasible. One or two years, you might manage it. For 15 years, it’s just not on.
“When the country got into trouble in 2007, 2008 the Irish Government were running a deficit of 50%. I don’t know any other company in the world, never mind country, that would pay that out.
Then things got serious, as Quinn played up to the crowd.
“Rather than blame themselves for what had happened, they blamed the victims,” he said to huge cheers.
“A lot of those victims are in this audience.” Bigger cheers.
“I know I was a victim, and so was my family. So then they started putting people out of their houses, put people out of their businesses, and put guys in to run them. They wouldn’t run a chicken farm.
“Alan Shatter put in legislation saying it was a criminal offence to withhold information regarding white-collar crime. I’ve an awful feeling there’s an awful lot of criminals up around in that Dublin area.” Biggest cheer of the day.
“The full story hasn’t been told,” he finished portentously. Applauded off, he went on a handshake-tour of the front row as Flavin blasted out The Mighty Quinn. And then it was all over.
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