Pro-Quinn crowd descends on HQ

Rodney Edwards • Published 28 Apr 2011 13:00 0 Comments

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A Quinn employee who attended a meeting with the company's new management yesterday believes that Sean Quinn is likely to lose his house and cars.

It's understood a meeting was held yesterday (Wednesday) at Quinn Headquarters in Derrylin between workers and senior staff.

One employee, who was present at the meeting, said they were briefed on a number of issues, including Mr. Quinn's current situation.

"We believe they [Anglo Irish Bank] will bankrupt him and his family, and take his house," said our source.

The employee believes that a large proportion of Mr. Quinn's personal fortune was tied up in the group.

It was reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend that Mr. Quinn signed a personal guarantee to Anglo in 2008 to repay all of his 2.8 million euro debt.

The guarantee apparently gives Anglo power to seize his portion of the family home and other personal assets, including his pension. According to the report, Anglo has made a provision of 2.2 euro billion against Mr. Quinn's debt.

On Tuesday several hundred protesters stormed the Quinn Group headquarters in Derrylin in support of him.

They staged a sit-in demonstration in anger at Anglo Irish Bank's dramatic takeover and the removal of the Quinn family from the empire.

And they outlined how much employment the Quinn family provided in the region and their concerns that jobs might now be at risk.

The protesters, made up of local people, Quinn employees and politicians Bernice Swift, Tommy Gallagher and Phil Flanagan, said they weren't going to move until Sean Quinn was reinstated and back in control.

But hours later the protest was called off after a personal plea from Mr. Quinn himself to 'stop and stop now'.

Padraig Donehoe, who was one of the organisers of the protest, is a member of a new community action group set up in response to the problems at Quinn's. He has told this newspaper that more protests and demonstrations are planned.

"It was fantastic to see such support from the entire community. We must stick up for Sean Quinn and all that he has done for this area. We felt it was the right thing to do - to protest for him and to protest for what is right. There were a lot of tears, we were dumbfounded at how successful it went. The big thing on our side is people power and we will protest again even bigger and better until Sean Quinn is back in his chair," he said.

In a statement to staff on Tuesday, the new Chairman of the Quinn Group, Pat O'Neill said there would be no job losses as a result of the restructuring and there was no plans to break up the manufacturing businesses.

However, our source who was present at yesterday's meeting claims staff were warned that should there be cuts redundancy packages could be as low as the legal minimum of three months' pay, regardless of how long they have worked.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 28 Apr 11

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