Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I extend my best wishes to the Chairman on his new role. I hope the delegation will agree that this is a pretty sickening episode in the pretty awful recent history of this country. On top of all the other crises concerning the banks and financial system, we have the mess in Quinn Insurance. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary families and householders are on the hook again, this time for €1.6 billion. If I understand Mr. Cullinan correctly, we cannot say for certain that the figure will not be higher. We could be forgiven for being alarmed by that thought given that the estimates have been revised upwards fairly dramatically in recent times.

The main cause of this is obviously the cowboy capitalism in which the Quinn family was engaged, driven by nothing but greed. Will the delegates from the Central Bank state how this could have happened? That a company could be engaged in this sort of reckless mismanagement, and falsely declaring profits when making losses, represents a catastrophic failure of regulation. There was massive under-provisioning against potential losses or claims, and none of this was spotted. Could the delegates from the Central Bank explain the nature of the supervision, or the lack thereof, during the period in question? What was the nature of the relationship and how was the supervision carried out? If the delegates were under-resourced, did they tell this to the then Government or state it publicly? Did they state they were worried that they did not have sufficient resources to carry out the necessary supervision of people such as Mr. Quinn? If the Central Bank was not complaining about this, it was also culpable. It is not good enough just to pass the buck, although I do not doubt the Government has to take some responsibility. The public would like some accountability. Who was to blame for the fact the Central Bank was under-resourced? Was it because of the ideological commitment to light touch regulation of the previous Government? Is that why we are paying the €1.6 billion? Was it because of the failure of the Central Bank itself to ring the alarm bells about its lack of resources or power to regulate the industry properly?

On the issue of profits which were actually losses, profits were taken out of the firm by the Quinn family, which was the sole shareholder. Gifts were mentioned. Some €135 million was given to Quinn Group Family Properties, or just to the Quinn family, and some €75 million was given to Barlo Financial Services. What precisely is that company? Is it just another front for the Quinn family? Do these sums comprise the same €200 million that Mr. Quinn described as adding to the personal wealth portfolio of his children? Did he not give €200 million to his children a few years ago?

How much profit did the Quinn family make when it was declaring profits falsely and were there more gifts than those I have mentioned? What is the Central Bank doing to get the money back off the Quinns? Is there any action that can be taken to limit the call on Irish policyholders and the fund by getting back the money that was essentially robbed from the company by-----