Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Lawless Cavan
Quinn director fears for safety after Lunney attack & threats
THE rule of law has broken down so much in Cavan that someone may yet “pay the ultimate price”, it was warned yesterday.
Quinn Industrial Holdings director John Mccartin was speaking two days after his QIH co-director Kevin Lunney opened up about his abduction and brutal torture.
In an interview with Pat Kenny yesterday, Mr Mccartin criticised the Garda and the PSNI for not tackling thugs in Cavan before Mr Lunney’s horrific ordeal.
He told cops on both sides of the border “we can’t be left on our own again” once the “hype” dies down. And he credited the media’s coverage for forcing authorities to act.
The businessman said: “If people are allowed to deliver threats specifically to our face, who are known to us and we tell the police and the gardai who they are and they are not questioned, then we have a situation where those criminals and criminality is becoming emboldened and our region is becoming ungovernable.
“We’ve been looking at the breakdown of law and order in this region.
“The State has been robustly challenged for a long time and that challenge has not been met.” Mr Mccartin acknowledged police on both sides of the border were finally taking the thugs’ campaign of intimidation seriously and had allocated more resources but should have intervened sooner.
He said: “We’ve been subjected [to] this from a very early stage. It has gone unchecked. We’ve been frustrated by the lack of response to our concerns but at this stage it has escalated to a point which is bordering on the intolerable.
“The next step is one of us will be asked to pay the ultimate price.
“When people are allowed to attend public meetings and prescribe executions without being questioned by the authorities, there’s a problem.
“When people can put up ugly signage in broad daylight and the authorities are afraid to take them down and 18 months afterwards, under intense pressure, some unknown agency in the dead of night removed them, it shows the State is afraid to defend the people who work in it.”
Mr Lunney told the BBC’S Spotlight how he feared he would never see his wife and children again and Mr Mccartin admitted he and his family are also living in fear.
He said: “My family obviously fear for me and I fear for them. The Spotlight [interview] was a tough watch and my older children watched it.
“They’ve been hearing bits and pieces in school and what’s being discussed in the house at various times. They’ve seen the Garda presence.
“There’s no keeping them from the reality so I’m very saddened by the fact they’ve to put up with this level of worry and fear.”