Quinns cite contempt threat for silence on details of finances

High Court heard of mass withdrawals of cash and no spending receipts

A series of hearings in the High Court has seen all of Sean Quinn’s children being quizzed about their responses to orders that they produce certain documents.

After Anglo Irish Bank, now part of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, seized the Quinn Group in April 2011, some members of the family tried to put a valuable property group (the International Property Group or IPG) beyond the reach of the bank, even though the bank had security over these assets.

On June 27th, 2011, Mr Justice Frank Clarke ordered the family to desist in any such efforts.

Sean Quinn senior and his son, Sean junior, have since been jailed for contempt for their part in continuing to put assets beyond the bank’s reach, after the order.

Quinn snr’s nephew, Peter Darragh Quinn, who lives in Northern Ireland, has an arrest warrant out against him for the same reason.

Aoife Quinn

Aoife Quinn (31) is a former claims manager with Quinn Insurance. She has a bachelor of science degree with the Technology Institute, Tralee, and a law qualification from Blackhall Place.

The courts have already heard that the Quinn children, apart from Brenda, were made employees in 2011 of Russian companies that, in turn, owned Russian property that formed part of the international property group.

Aoife Quinn told Paul Gallagher SC, for the bank, that she signed Russian employment contracts that she didn’t understand, and that her husband, Stephen Kelly, her brother, Sean, or Peter Darragh Quinn, would have told her they were employment contracts.

She opened an account in a Moscow Bank, Ocean Bank, into which her salaries were paid. Asked by Mr Justice Kelly how much she was paid, she offered a figure but didn’t know if it was dollars or euro.

Mr Gallagher said her brother’s information was that the amount paid to her, in the year to August 2012, was €379,000 after 30 per cent Russian tax had been deduced. She said Ocean Bank did not issue statements but that she got a text message on her phone each time there was a transaction on the account.

Ms Quinn was questioned about trips to Moscow, Dubai, Kiev and other locations as part of her involvement with the property group. She said she met officials from a group called Senat in Dubai, and that she opened bank accounts in the United Arab Emirates but never lodged money to them.

Asked about trips to Switzerland in late 2011 and early 2012, and whether these had any connection with any Quinn family trust, she said they did not. She said she had withdrawn almost all of the money lodged to her Moscow account using a Visa card. The money had been spent primarily on legal fees.

When Gallagher raised the issue of a $500,000 payment to the Cypriot court paid by a Russian company in the property group, Quinn objected. “Your client wrote to me five weeks before bringing this application and alleged a direct allegation of contempt against me in relation to this payment,” she said.

Ciara Quinn

Ciara Quinn (35), a qualified nurse who worked for nine years as a claims handler with Quinn Insurance, is married to solicitor Niall McPartland.