Daughter of Sean Quinn secures orders for tax payments

Court allows receivers over frozen bank accounts to pay property and income tax on behalf of Ciara Quinn

Ciara Quinn, a daughter of bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn, has secured court orders, with the consent of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, allowing receivers appointed over frozen bank accounts make payments due by her of €1,800 for local property tax and some €3,780 income tax.

Ms Quinn’s husband, Niall McPartland, secured similar orders, also on consent, allowing the receivers pay €1,260 local property tax and some €7,000 in income tax due by him.

An additional order permits Sean Quinn jnr and his wife Karen Woods create a €210,000 mortgage or charge over their home at Alder Lodge, Castlenock, Dublin.

That charge is required for the purposes of raising funds to assist Mr Quinn in purging his contempt of court orders restraining stripping of assets from the Quinns’ international property group.

READ MORE

Mr Quinn was jailed for three months after being found guilty of contempt arising from a $500,000 payment made to the former general director of Quinn Properties Ukraine.

The High Court previously indicated payment of the €210,000 would lead to the final purging of that contempt and the matter is due before Miss Justice Elizabeth Dunne next month.

At the Commercial Court today, Martin Hayden SC, for the Quinns, said IBRC and the receivers were consenting to all those orders. That was confirmed by Barry O’Donnell, for IBRC, and Andrew Fitzpatrick, for the receivers.

In those circumstances, Mr Justice Peter Kelly agreed to vary the freezing orders on the Quinns accounts for the purposes of permitting those payments.

The judge will next month deal with further applications by members of the family for additional variations of orders granted from June 2012 which have frozen their accounts below €50 million and appointed receivers over their accounts and assets.

IBRC last week indicated it had some concerns about the additional variations and wanted to put matters on affidavit.

In an affidavit on behalf of the family, Aoife Quinn said the variations were necessary because the accounts are likely to remain frozen for some time pending the full hearing of the legal actions between the bank and members of her family. That case is deferred until after the conclusion of criminal proceedings against various former executives of Anglo Irish Bank, IBRC's predecessor in title.

Aoife Quinn said the variations are required to allow the family set up direct debits and standing orders, meet tax payments, manage shareholdings in the cases of two of them and, when appropriate and if necessary, sell cars.

Her brother and his wife are expecting their first baby next year and would need to discharge expenses for that, plus tax payments of some €10,000, she said.

Karen Woods also wanted a variation to allow her deal, if necessary, with shares valued at €102,500 but was not seeking to put any proceds from any sale of the shares beyond the control of receivers while Ciara Quinn wanted to deal with a Ryanair shareholding on the same terms.

Brenda Quinn wants to put an unidentified sum due to her from her former employers, Quinn Insurance, as compensation for loss of her employment into a Bank of Ireland account in Cavan and have that excluded from the freezing orders and control of the receivers, subject to account statements being given to the receivers. That sum is not related to the issues in this case, Aoife Quinn said.

Ciara Quinn and Niall McPartland also want five accounts set up by them for their children excluded from the court orders, subject to statements of the accounts being provided to the receivers.

Mary Carolan

Mary Carolan

Mary Carolan is the Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times