END VIOLENCE OR AMERICANS WILL PULL OUT
Quinn group boss warns US f irm will shut down and sacrif ice 850 jobs rather than give in to intimidation
INTERNATIONAL investors in Seán Quinn’s former businesses will shut up shop and sacrifice 850 jobs rather than submit to intimidation, a Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) director has revealed.
In a hard-hitting interview, director John McCartin has told the Irish Mail on Sunday that QIH’s investors would be more concerned about the global reputational implications of backing away from a campaign of intimidation than simply closing the factory and walking away.
This weekend, a clearly shaken Mr McCartin spoke for his board and community when he said violence in the region has come about from a
‘long-term systemic failure by the police forces in this country’.
Mr McCartin also told the MoS of meeting with people who he has identified to gardaí – on several occasions – who relayed chilling threats to him, his family and his fellow directors in person.
While criticising the Government’s failure to protect people from violence and thuggery in the border region, the directors of QIH admit that fears of job losses might be the only thing that inspires a belated crackdown.
A former Fine Gael councillor, Mr McCartin didn’t spare Taoiseach Leo Varadkar – who he says has been ‘blindsided’ by the issue – or Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan.
Despite Government spin this week that the QIH’s director’s personal protection has been increased, the MoS saw little evidence of that in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan this week.
Mr McCartin says that An Garda Síochána, the PSNI and Government have paid scant attention to their pleas since the intimidation, arson and assaults reached new levels four-and-a-half years ago.
He believes that the aim of the campaign of intimidation is clear – to cause such chaos that US investors will accept that the company cannot be managed and they decide to hand control back to its founder and former owner, Seán Quinn.
Crucially, Mr Quinn denies any involvement in any level of the campaign – and has this week condemned the renewed threats and the abduction of Kevin Lunney.
Mr McCartin said the owners have repeatedly made it clear since, that they would prefer to close down the companies than hand them back to Mr Quinn.
‘If the point of this campaign is to prove that only Seán Quinn can operate these businesses, the worst-case scenario is that these guys manage to prove that. Well, these investors are not going to capitulate to that.
‘So if we [the current management] end up out of that business, it closes. They’ve told us that. End of story. 850 direct jobs and 2,500 jobs in the wider community would be gone and it will be absolute devastation for the area. This campaign can lead to no good for anybody.’
Mr McCartin was central in putting together a €98m deal in 2014 that allowed the former Quinn management team to run the company. But the money came from US hedge funds Silver Point Capital, Brigade Capital and Contrarian Capital. The US firms own more than 80pc of the company.
Mr McCartin, like all the directors of the QIH, was once friends with Mr Quinn. They engineered Mr Quinn’s return to the company as a consultant on €500,000 a year – despite the owner’s reluctance. In 2016 they asked for Mr Quinn to be removed after a series of disputes.
As intimidation intensified, there was official indifference at a local and national level, according to Mr McCartin – even when he directly identified to gardaí people who were threatening him, his family and other directors.
Mr McCartin told the MoS about a meeting he held with two [named] individuals around this time – who had no connection with the company. The individuals had expressed a desire to give him beneficial information.
‘But then it became very clear that they weren’t here to tell me this for my own good, they were here to impress on me that they had a message that I was in danger.
‘ “Why is Liam McCaffrey still there?” was one of the questions.
‘The thing that we don’t want to see is families getting hurt. You’ve little children we don’t want to see them getting hurt.’
He continued: ‘I met [named individual] another day, it was a Saturday because I was after collecting my kids from martial arts.
‘And we were down here and they were running around the lobby [of the hotel] and [he] made reference to the fact that I had children running around the lobby, that it was really irresponsible of me to put those children in such danger,’ adding that he himself could be shot, he says.
‘The man continued: “Why is Liam McCaffrey still there? Is he stupid”.’
Mr McCartin responded: ‘Maybe Liam has more balls than you think. I said to [him] don’t be coming to me any more to threaten me. If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me, if not f*** off.’
Asked about the Garda response, Mr McCartin said: ‘No, they weren’t taking it seriously. And because they weren’t taking it seriously I wasn’t taking it seriously. It was really annoying, the pig’s head was annoying, the posters were annoying, the defamation was annoying but as regards the physical threats to our lives, I wasn’t taking it seriously because the guards weren’t taking it seriously.’
Until the abduction of Mr Lunney...
‘What was done to Kevin proves that the people have the resolve to do anything. I mean when you can inflict that level of pain, of suffering, of fear on a man and his family you will do anything.
‘It would have been easier to kill him than to do what they did. Both psychologically and physically it would have been easier to kill him.
He said: ‘I’ve no doubt that the resolve is there to make us pay the ultimate price to achieve the aims of the campaign. The state needs to resolve, to take back control.’
Asked if he believes those behind the campaign are former subversives, he points out that is not what concerns him: ‘It may well involve former subversives, it may well involve former paramilitaries, but this isn’t ideological, this is private enterprise. It doesn’t concern me that much who actually did it. What concerns me is who procured it, who financed it and resourced it. It’s bringing that entity to justice.
‘Of course, they’re being paid, you cannot do what happened to Kevin... That wasn’t three fellas who met in the pub the night before having a pint and they decided to do this.’
He continued: ‘That was somebody who was booked, financed, resourced and organised to do this. It took a lot of people. There were cars to be stolen, there were movements to be catalogued and scoped out. There was countryside to be reccied, there was a premises to be procured, people to be paid. This was an expensive operation.’
Even after the abduction and torture of Mr Lunney, there was no visible increase in security on either the directors or in the region.
It wasn’t until Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny had his car burned out in Ballinamore last week, and an arson attack on Emyvale Garda Station in Co. Monaghan – events the Garda commissioner says are currently unlinked – that a State response ratcheted up.
Protection for Mr McCartin and his fellow directors has only marginally increased since. Mr McCartin says that there has been a ‘breakdown in the rule of law’ in an
‘These investors are not going to capitulate’ ‘They had a message that I was in danger’
area that stretches from Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan, near the Fermanagh border, across to Ballinamore in Leitrim.
‘Those who carry out arson attacks, erect abusive posters, assault QIH directors and threaten their families operate with impunity.
‘It points towards long-term systemic failure within the police forces in this country that a Taoiseach can be blind-sided by this, that a Minister for Justice can be frustrated in his efforts to get control of it and that the perpetrators of these crimes, who are known to the dogs in the street, can operate with impunity in the region,’ said Mr McCartin in an interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday in the Slieve Russell Hotel in Ballyconnell, Cavan, on Friday.
‘I don’t know whether it’s fear, compromise or ineptitude... there has been an attitude of that when we speak to people in political circles. They say “sure, Jesus, you are always at it up there”. Nobody is making an effort to differentiate between us and what was being done to us.’
The directors of QIH have repeatedly requested a meeting with Garda Commissioner Drew Harris.
He has previously refused, but since the meeting with the Taoiseach, a date has now been put in the diary.
Mr Varadkar has not met with the directors, who after years of attacks and intimidation, were issued with a serious death threat last week.
Mr Varadkar has not visited the region to meet victims either, though he did call Mr McCartin on Tuesday,
‘The Taoiseach called me and he expressed his outrage at what was happening, his frustration at how long it’s been happening and his surprise that in modern Ireland that it could have gotten to where it got to.’
The MoS has separately confirmed that Mr Varadkar has privately complained that he hasn’t been adequately briefed on the events.
Senior Government sources told the MoS last night that there is an acceptance in Government that the security of the State is now under threat.
However, this has come too late for many in the region.
When asked whether security activity in the region could be compared to that seen in North Dublin recently during a criminal feud, Mr McCartin said: ‘I would have to say there has been quite the opposite.
‘As a law-abiding citizen of this country I am constantly fighting to keep points off my licence, yet it is the people who have been doing this to us for the past four-and-a-half years and doing a lot more to other people before that seem to be able to operate with absolute impunity in the region.’
A Government source told the Mail on Sunday last night: ‘This has the potential to cause us serious embarrassment, especially with concerns that the company might close. We will look at measures that were commonplace during the Troubles, like placing the Army in support of Garda patrols.’
Mr McCartin and the directors have been in contact with a number of senior Government figures in recent days. They too have asked why measures aren’t being taken to combat criminality.
‘Friends and family have asked me why isn’t the Army deployed? This is an attack on the State, an attack on the rule of law, and that the Army is supposed to defend the state. Why aren’t the army deployed to the region?’ he asks.
Mr McCartin believes the attack on Mr Kenny’s car after he had spoken out about the treatment of asylum seekers in Ballinamore, has finally driven home that the region has become lawless.
‘I think they have gotten the message and it is just underlined by what happened Martin Kenny’s car,’ said Mr McCartin. ‘The message is that the rule of law was robustly challenged here and that challenge wasn’t met.
‘Since the Good Friday Agreement there was a power vacuum that was not filled by the Garda and the PSNI along the border. It was filled by criminality. It is clear now that the PSNI and the Garda have to tool up and take back control.’
The MoS spoke to Mr Quinn at his home just yards from the Slieve Russell Hotel that he once owned.
He politely referred the paper to a recent interview he had given, where he insisted he had ‘no problem’ with Mr Lunney – and his issues were with two other directors, Liam McCaffrey and Dara O’Reilly. Separately this week, Mr Quinn re-condemned the acts of violence against Mr Lunney and called on the threats to ‘cease immediately’.
‘I call on those who have advanced threats to withdraw them immediately. If they feel that they are doing it in mine or my family’s name, then they are badly mistaken,’ the statement added.
A Government spokesman said: ‘The Taoiseach emphasised the Government’s commitment to ensuring safety in the area.
‘The Taoiseach made the call in advance of his meeting with the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, which was taking place the next day.
‘The Taoiseach has known Mr McCartin for some time.’
‘This was an expensive operation’