Sean Quinn documentary: Former tycoon admits significant wrongdoing in business affairs
and live on Freeview channel 276
Former business tycoon Sean Quinn has admitted wrongdoing in his business affairs that resulted in his empire being torn from his hands.
The Fermanagh man was speaking in a new three part documentary by Fine Point Films for RTE called Quinn Country.
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Hide AdQuinn tied his fortune and that of his businesses to the fate of Anglo-Irish Bank, making big bets on the bank’s share price as it tumbled to disaster. The state was forced to move in and begin the process of taking control of
Quinn’s businesses. What followed were protracted legal battles, a campaign of intimidation and violence, culminating in the horrific attack in 2019 on Seán Quinn’s former right-hand man, Kevin Lunney.
Speaking about his calamitous decision to invest heavily in Anglo Irish Bank, Mr Quinn said: "Other people in the office would have known we shouldn't have been doing it.
"I suppose it just sort of happened and again, maybe our system was a bit weak.
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Hide Ad"And maybe we didn't have enough people just looking over this thing, and maybe I was too dominant a factor in this. And I suppose when I asked it to be done it was done."
His children feel that he has given away their fortune, he added.
"We have plenty of rows and I suppose they thought they were multi millionaires if not more and then their father gave it all away on them," he said.
The beginning of the end of his empire was when he began to take money out of his insurance business to cover major debts he incurred when massive investments in the Anglo Irish Bank turned sour.
"That was wrong, I shouldn't have done that," he said.
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Hide AdIn the end he fought a losing battle over debts of nearly 3bn Euro with Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish courts.
The second episode finished with passionate scenes from a border protest in October 2012 where hundreds of people held up placards defending Sean Quinn in the face of the financial onslaught.
The documentary closed with a young woman from the platform telling the crowd: