Seán Quinn jnr claims family was victimised

Seán Quinn jnr accused one of the joint administrators of Quinn Insurance, Michael McAteer, of conducting a campaign of victimisation against him and other members of his family, an Employment Appeals Tribunal heard in Dublin yesterday.

The suggestion was rejected by Mr McAteer, who gave evidence to the tribunal in a case where Mr Quinn is saying he was unfairly dismissed from the company formerly owned by him and other members of his family.

Mr Quinn, with an address in Castleknock, Dublin, is contesting the termination of his employment with Quinn Insurance in August 2011. He had been with the company since October 2000 and received a dismissal notice in June 2011. The tribunal heard the company could not locate an employment contract for Mr Quinn.

Conor Power, for the company, said Mr Quinn was on a salary of €75,000 per annum and that the company did not know anything about Mr Quinn’s claim that he was also entitled to a bonus arising from his work as a director of the company.

Mr McAteer, one of the administrators appointed to Quinn Insurance by the Central Bank in March 2010, told the tribunal the appointment involved him and Paul McCann taking on the management and control of the business and meant its board of directors no longer had an executive function.

At the time, Mr Quinn was head of the insurance company’s commercial insurance business in Britain. Mr Quinn made representations to the administrators that the UK business could be made profitable but, Mr McAteer said, he let the analysis that had been conducted of the business “speak for itself”.

That analysis had indicated that, historically, the British commercial business was “extremely loss-making” overall, although there were some “profitable pockets”. It was closed and the books were being written down.

Although there was some work for Mr Quinn to do up to the end of the summer of 2010, he was not let go until almost a year later. In the meantime he “didn’t have any particular defined role” although he had offices in Manchester, Blanchardstown and Cavan.

Mr McAteer said he didn’t know what Mr Quinn was doing during his final year with the business. “Some weeks I wouldn’t see him. Some weeks I’d see him once.”

A senior management team was assisting the administrators. Mr Quinn had attended the first meeting of the team after the administrators’ appointment but not any subsequent meeting. “It is possible I told him it was not appropriate that he attend,” Mr McAteer said.

In May 2011, a process to sell the insurance business was announced and later the bulk of the business, but not the British commercial insurance end, was sold to Liberty Insurance.

Mr McAteer met Mr Quinn in June 2011 to discuss the latter’s position. It was agreed they would meet in the Quinn offices in Blanchardstown, and without third parties. Mr McAteer said he explained to Mr Quinn that the position of head of commercial insurance in Britain was being made redundant, and gave Mr Quinn a list of other positions he might take on.

The meeting lasted about five minutes and was “quite fraught”, he said. It was a robust meeting and there was a frank exchange, he said. Mr Quinn asked him if the list was a joke and said the meeting was just a “tick-the-box exercise” and said words to the effect of “why not be a man and just sack him?”.

During subsequent correspondence, Mr Quinn informed Mr McAteer that he was on sick leave and included a doctor’s certificate. He asked why Mr McAteer had appointed people to senior management roles near his level while at the same time thinking of making the role of head of claims redundant. Mr McAteer said Mr Quinn had not acted in the role of head of claims while he had been there.

In a subsequent email, Mr Quinn said his being made redundant was part of the “victimisation and harassment” his family had been subjected to since the appointment of the administrators.

In June Mr McAteer wrote to Mr Quinn telling him he did not accept the assertions made against him. He told Mr Quinn he was being let go and gave him information as to his entitlements. Mr Power said Mr Quinn was entitled to a total of €76,146 but, as he never signed a redundancy agreement, he only got the statutory payment of €13,608.

Mr Quinn, in a further email, told Mr McAteer that it was clear he was being victimised on the basis that he was a member of the Quinn family. He was being singled out as part of a process fof “clearing out” the Quinn family from the business.