iBAM! Chicago 2012 - Irish American News

September 2012 Irish American News “We’ve AlWAys Been Green!” 31
By Maurice Fitzpatrick
In Another Pattern
ighty Quinn?
On the Tonight with Vincent
Browne show on August 1st Sean
Quinn, formerly the wealthiest
man in Ireland, gave plaintive answers
to the notoriously belligerent
media impressario regarding his
responsibility for his debt. Quinn
invested 2.8 billion euro in Anglo-
Irish Bank five years ago—a move
which ultimately bankrupted him
earlier this year. Quinn admits that
it was his own fault for trusting
the bank, but maintains that no
member of his family should have
been penalised, especially his five
children who have been forced
into unemployment. Additionally,
he insists that the bank's methods
of luring him to invest were underhand,
and he is seeking redress.
Quinn is not alone in defending
this position. Senior GAA people,
Fr. Brian D'Arcy (who was a
schoolmate of Quinn's) as well as
the owner of one of the biggest airlines
in the world, Michael O'Leary,
have vigorously upheld the Fermanagh
man. Cynics thought that
once he was disposed as top man
of his company his support would
fall away, but they were wrong.
Quinn has a large contingency
behind him. The generations of
people employed by Quinn have
not forgotten what he did for them
and he invigorated the border region
which badly needed it.
Despite the breath of support
for Quinn, his son languishes in
prison. The Irish court system blatantly
compromised its principles
in jailing Sean Jr. and letting Sean
Sr. walk free. Both were found to
be in contempt of court; one was
sent away. The tactic is obvious.
Blackmail dad, let him writhe
at seeing his son behind bars to
force him to repay his debts (getting
'smoke back into a bottle' as
Quinn described the task). The
government's satraps who sit on
the judicial bench are playing a
game with Quinn, but in so doing
they have not retained their professional
honour.
Several features of the Quinn
story combine to make it remark-
able. Quinn's case, involving his
five children and their spouses, has
all the elements of a Greek Tragedy:
one character's flaw brings
down everything he has built up,
causing a dilemma in his community
through his struggle to retain
dignity and to uphold his family.
Quinn, Ireland's prototypical
self-made man, famously started
with a digger and a quarry; borrowing
a little money and aided by
GAA friends, he gradually formed
the largest conglomerate in the
state, building his empire through
hard work and imagination.
The reach of the Group's interests
was legendary. Starting
with concrete and glass, Quinn
expanded to the leisure industries—building
hotels, discos, golf
courses in Ireland, and buying
still more all across the world.
Quinn's enterprises were mutually
reinforcing and they invigorated a
region that badly needed it. Finally,
he founded Quinn Direct, an insurance
company that took unprecedented
risks, as well as Quinn
Healthcare. For a while, Quinn's
insurance companies threatened
to topple him. Many, jealous of
the world-wide operator and contemptuous
of his countryman's
accent, hoped that they would.
But an irresponsible gamble on a
casino, Anglo-Irish Bank, halted
four decades of wealth and job
creation (the Quinn Group had
employed 8,000 people).
Quinn's lifelong rise and precipitous
descent is a parable of
western economies. Beginning
with a reliance on heavy industry,
wealth rooted in tangible things,
Quinn was trumped in the end for
his faith insecurities and the myth
of ever-inflating paper money. But
his downfall, experienced over the
past five years of receiverships,
court cases and bankruptcy, is also
a metaphor for something more
peculiar to Irish society today.
Irish people, since the financial
crisis began, have been faced with
stiff choices. Despite the casualisation
of the labour market, stealth
taxation and other threats to livelihood
and homes, The Regime has
quashed every attempt of most
people to work their way out of
the crisis. The scapegoating of
Quinn has not worked nearly well
enough to provide the requisite
diversion from the truths of the
Irish economy: the banks needed
a resolution five years ago and
most of our crisis is the result of
the government having failed to
impose it.
Overarching the Quinn case is
a deeper question about the legitimacy
of debt forgiveness in our
society. After a decade of gung-ho
deregulation leading to the crash,
nobody believes anymore that
Irish private debt is repayable, yet
the problem is so enormous and
the government so feeble, and
stuck like a barnacle to the doctrine
of austerity, that there is no sign of
a reckoning on the matter.
The reason why the Irish public
is divided on this case ('make
him pay for his debts' versus 'he
was a good man wronged by the
system') is because his supporters
saw in Quinn someone who made
a genuine attempt to work his way
through his disaster. His proposal,
a seven year plan to repay the bank
every cent he owed, was rubbished
even while the bank and government
were plotting the takeover
of his business. His constructive
bid having been thrown out, the
inner core of the Quinn Group
(his immediate family) rushed to
squirrel off assets in the Ukraine
and Russia.
The government is currently on
holiday, resting after a hard year's
work .But they will have taken
note of the level of support Sean
Quinn has garnered and that he is
fighting back—he is suing Anglo-
Irish Bank which begged him to
buy to balance the share price.
Those who feel aggrieved at the
fallen magnate have some justification:
the Irish taxpayer is now
liable for his debt. Over the next12
years every time Irish people
insure their cars they will pay an
extra 2% to cover Quinn's gamble.
Quinn has publicly and repeatedly
admitted his mistakes. He
is not blameless, but his accusers
have a lot to answer for as well.
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