Quinn was a greedy pig who had billions and gambled it all so he could have more a stupid greedy man who blames everyone else for his own mistakes. I hate this narrative that he lost it all though he still lives in a mansion still drives a fancy car and isn't short of a few bob I can guarantee you that. He owns a betting company that's doing well he caused other to lose it all alright but not him. The FF/FG trying to blame him for the crash have a cheek as well they were all in favour of deregulation and capitalism running wild they can't rewrite history now.
I'd imagine that Council Officials would have been either bought or intimidated by the provos.
I see someone mentioned the planning applications, plenty of talk locally that a lot of those buildings did not have planning permission, once built any objections from the council would then be shouted down as an attack on jobs etc. He tried this in the UK also, but the local councils over there were not as much of a pushover like our lot.
People shouldn't be fooled by the veil. He didn't think normal workers or people mattered much less people claiming social welfare.
I would have no faith in the planners in Cavan County Council anyone. One of them played a big part in refusing a developer planning for a big housing development on the outskirts of the town and a year later bought the land himself and got planning no bother and then build 100+ houses on it. As for the engineers getting stone and concrete for "jobs" and then diverting them to their own private houses which they were building. Corruption was widespread back then.
Sorry for going off topic just wanted to let ye know the type of individuals in the council he would have been dealing with.
Hopefully, the next two episodes will hit harder home.
Quinn deepened significantly the recession we all felt in 2008. Every public servant got a pay cut because of Quinn. Social welfare rates were frozen because of Quinn. The damage he did is still being felt all over the country.
The regulator isn't in the banks every day looking at the transactions. The audits should have picked up the problem so there is some blame on the big accountancy firms. The first problem was the day-to-day governance of the banks. The second problem was David McWilliams' pitch to Brian Lenihan to guarantee the banks. All the officials opposed that because they had some sense that something was wrong, but Lenihan and Cowen overruled them. Without that guarantee, Anglo would have collapsed, we would still have had to prop up the other banks, but the damage to the economy would be far less.
It all came down to a few men, Quinn, Fitzpatrick, Dunne, McWilliams, Lenihan and Cowen, the common characteristic being that they were all too stupid to realise how stupid the rest of them were.
And no diff
Well will it come out in the documentary I wonder or is this just going to be a PR exercise for the Quinn family.
Yeh 100 percent amazing that he thought he was sheltered from all of the global turmoil. The two Anglo biyos fairly out foxed him there !!
No it is not and I'm not sure why you're taking such a line. The culture at the time was one where it was encouraged to make as much money as possible. Look at Anglo. Look at Irish Permanent. Look all around you as it has all been widely reported on!
Quinn gambled massively using borrowed money and he lost. When he lost, we all lost. However, how did he manage to get all the money from the likes of Anglo? How did Anglo manage to loan almost €1bn to Quinn (bringing his debt to them to over €2Bn) with over €300m of that in a matter of days. How did Anglo manage to hand over €450m to the Maple 10 to counterstrike Quinn's moves. Where was the regulator when all of this was going on? Where was the governance?
Quinn is 100% responsible for what he did. That does not remove the issue that there was a culture of low level regulation at that time which enabled greedy pigs like Quinn to gamble like he did.
and the Google StreetView is only 2009.
I am sure he completed all the Environmental Impact Statements needed.
When you think that the Galway bypass can be stopped on relatively minor grounds, and something like this just gets driven through the countryside you realise the way he got away with it.
Don't think we can say anything other than he was lucky with planning permissions or the whataboutery police will descend on us.
Inside information and bungs have always been
factors in some people making money
54.12985467184554, -7.646680734010484
The Quinn Highway - one of the odder sights in the Irish countryside. A private road as good as any of our major regional roads, built as I heard it at the time, without planning permission but maybe that was local rumour. Better quality than the main national primary route below. Oddly I think in the Republic but uses NI/British road signage. Basically runs for miles in middle of nowhere to bring materials from one of his quarries of the day.
"Lucky" With planning permissions.
Wouldn't we all like to see what connections and relationship he and the family had with certain county councils at the time.
According to himself and the mates he shouldn't have had to pay for that gamble though 😀
You know I'm not buying that clean as a whistle and just really good at buying and shrewd investments to get to where he did. I'd say like all these lads there were under handed procedures used too.
Alan Dukes is hilarious on it.
That is like saying that because there wasn't a garda car with a speed camera near an accident, they have some responsibility for enabling speeding that caused an accident.
It absolves personal responsibility for law-breaking to imply that the regulators should have been there at every turn. About 4 million other people in this country didn't need the regulator to tell them not to engage in what Quinn did.
Amazing how he gambled everything on Anglo
As someone posted you'd never see a Warren buffet do that
He must have been ignoring or overruling whatever advice he was getting
Just watching it now. It's very pro Quinn and his rise from rags to riches. Amazing the fawning from some journalists over him. Hopefully the next two parts are a bit more balanced.
Just crazy that he made such bad decisions and questionable legal actions which led to him in front of the courts and he still feels that "they" have taken my business from me. Everyone else fault.
It disgusts me that we allow such criminals to benefit from the proceeds of their criminality, still living it large in their McMansions and driving luxury cars while the public foots the bill for their poor gambling.
As someone who claimed that the regulator was not working effectively to oversee and govern the secotr, do you dispute this? However, I (nor others to my knowledge) made the claim that the regulator was at fault.
Quinn was at completely fault for what he did. However, the poor regulation of our financial services sector enabled him to do this. Surely you cannot dispute this?
Dunne and Fitzpatrick both went bankrupt as well as Quinn, how do you make out they didn't suffer the way Quinn did. After all, he is still living in his big palace in Cavan while Dunne is in exile.
I didn't even bother with the first episode.
The second was always going go be the start of the juice.
Workin in that part of the country, you have to pay your tolls.
Businessmen from that part of the country know this, and have been helped to be succesful.
If their successors don't continue to pay the tolls... Well, there can be repercussions.
A) - Croke park was re-built starting in 1993
B) - this thing (hint, also 1993) ......
I just dont know - I would love to think he is an honest man who just worked hard. Back in those days it was hard to get such large finance form banks. It was hard to get your foot in the door in the construction industry and compete with the likes of CRH. Sean Quinn it seems overcame finance obstacles and managed to convince the building industry to buy his products over established names. Hopefully no dirty money or bully boy tactics were used.
Im sure you would have to agree the violent tactics which occurred in Quinn country since Quinn lost control do raise questions. Who else is so annoyed with the situation to turn to violence - if Sean Quinn isnt involved in this than someone else lost out bigtime too.
There is an awful lot of spin, we have had posters spinning that it was all the regulator's fault and stupid nonsense about Quinn being outside the circle and stuff like that, all designed as whataboutery to defend Quinn.
That first episode was just RTE gagging on Sean Quinn's member. Hopefully the second and third episode are a bit more critical.
Quinns trucks were everywhere around the country delivering loads by then.
I'm not sure what you think the IRA would have done but I somehow think that regardless of their involvement with Quinn (if any), the IRA would surely have been in favour of Croke Park's redevelopment.
However, having lived down that neck of the woods for some time and having met Quinn a few times, I don't recall anyone ever suggesting that there was IRA involvement in his business and this would have been the area where Don Tidey was held while kidnapped and where many believe that Shergar is buried - back in the 70s and 80s, the IRA had plenty of sympathy. That said, many of my neighbours there would have not had IRA sympathies but all looked on Sean as someone who did great work for the area (this would have been many years prior to his undoing)
Indeed. I knew people who worked for him and they were sent out to try and settle claims with offers for injured parties usually with an upper limit of 10K. This included people with personal injuries before the case went to court and multiples of that amount were awarded.
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