The courts told Patricia Quinn that she had to pay back a €3 million loan to Anglo. She claimed to know nothing about it. What’s going on?
More money troubles for the Quinns? Looks like it will be a lean Christmas around their house.
Indeed and it will, certainly after this week. According to the Irish Times today, Patricia Quinn was informed in court this week by Justice Peter Kelly that she has to fork out over €3m to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), formerly Anglo Irish Bank, arising from a loan taken out by herself and her embattled husband Sean in 2006.
But she claims to know nothing about it? In fairness, €3m is hardly loose change that you’d let slip down the side of the couch.
True, but we’re talking about radically different times here. In 2006, Sean Quinn was well on his way to becoming the richest person in Ireland. Around that time the Quinn group was worth in and around €5 billion, so while €3m is hardly something that he’d wipe his arse with, it was still small fry in the larger scheme of things.
Anyway, Patricia’s defence was that she was a homemaker and merely signed a load of papers that Sean put in front of her without asking any questions.
Come off it, could she not have come up with something better than that?
You’d think so, but the sad part of it all was that she was probably telling the truth, such was the life of excess lived by the Quinns and indeed many other members of Ireland’s wealthy brigade around that time. As long as the money kept rolling in, she thought she had nothing to answer for.
Surely, that ‘defence’ was ridiculed in court?
Absolutely. Justice Kelly said that even a quick glance at the papers would have alerted all but illiterate people that it involved borrowing of some form or other.
He added that she was trying to come forward with the “startling proposition” that she was “a cat’s paw” for her husband and was “clueless” about being a director of many companies and a secretary of others.
Hold on, company director and a secretary? I thought she only made the dinner and washed the dishes?
Oh, sorry I must have forgot to mention the fact that she was a director of 63 Quinn group companies in the Republic of Ireland, 28 Quinn companies in the UK and secretary of a further ten companies. Mere figurehead roles they may have been, but those sorts of numbers are off the charts.
So in the end she has to pay to pay it all off?
Yep all €3,059,951 plus costs. The judge basically ruled that her defence simply wasn’t a defence and ordered her to cough up since there was no evidence of undue influence on behalf of her hubbie.
And had she anything to say for herself?
Oh but of course, the violins were wailing loudly in the background as she played the poor mouth, insisting that she was not a “business lady” and had merely been a housewife and loyal partner to her husband for 36 years.
She claimed that she only found out very recently that she was a customer of Anglo Irish Bank and that she was never informed of the consequences of signing the documents, even though she readily admitted to signing them in the first place.
“This is embarrassing to admit but it is the truth,” she said.
Jaysus, those Quinns are away with the fairies.
In more ways than you can even imagine. To find out why, click here.
