Seán Quinn on Prime Time: aptly for someone who made his money in concrete, he’s expert at keeping a stony facade

There is always that moment in an interview with Seán Quinn where the ex-billionaire refers to himself in the third person. His latest media appearance doesn’t disappoint, though it’s only right at the end of his Prime Time exchange with Miriam O’Callaghan (RTÉ One, 9.35pm) that Seán Quinn starts to talk about “Seán Quinn”. If you’re playing Quinn Group bingo, it’s finally time for your first drink. It’s quids in for Quinn’s in.

“Forget about what Seán Quinn says,” says Seán Quinn. “Go by the facts ... what’s on the record.”

Seán Quinn is discussing the new book by Seán Quinn – Seán Quinn: In My Own Words (by Seán Quinn). It’s already prompted controversy following a rancorous interview between Quinn and a Sunday Independent journalist. He apologised at the book launch on Thursday night for “losing his rag” and was again contrite sitting down with O’Callaghan and RTÉ.

“I don’t like to do 2½ hour interviews. I don’t like repetitive questions,” he says. “I’m sorry. I lost it a wee bit. I apologise for that.”

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What he is not apologising for, however, was the investment in Anglo Irish shares that ultimately doomed the Quinn Group. “You tend to blame everyone but yourself,” says O’Callaghan. “At the end of the day, you signed the loan documents.”

[ Standing room only as Seán Quinn launches his book in hotel once regarded as jewel in crown of business empire ]

[ Seán Quinn says he does not have ‘the price of a bag of spuds’ ]

Quinn disagrees. What he did was “stupid but totally legal”. He was “foolish” but says that the money he “bet” on Anglo represented about “15 months profits” from the Quinn Group.

Such justifications will be familiar to anyone who slogged through last year’s three-part Quinn Country documentary on RTÉ – an epic trilogy on the scale of Lord of the Rings, only with more cement factories. O’Callaghan also asks him about the abduction and brutal assault on Kevin Lunney, chief operations officer at Quinn Industrial Holdings in September 2019. The attack was “a barbaric act” says Quinn: “Wrong, wrong, wrong wrong.”

He also denies knowing Cyril McGuinness, aka Dublin Jimmy, the career criminal suspected of kidnapping Lunney and who suffered a fatal heart attack when police raided the house in England to which he had fled. “I was never talking to him for 30 seconds. Did I meet him ever for a chat? No. Seán jnr [Quinn’s son] played pool with him once or twice. I never met the man, no.”

[ Hard to foresee Seán Quinn ‘fading into the shadows’ after book release ]

Aptly for someone who made his money in concrete, he maintains a stony facade and is impervious to O’Callaghan’s empathetic interview style. What the conversation ultimately feels like is a whistle-stop rehash of the Quinn Country. Quinn has his position and his sticking to it. “I admit in the book I was always greedy. I was greedy for success ... building a hotel, a glass factory in the middle of nowhere,” he says in a statement that encapsulates his world view and, no doubt, his new book. “Money wasn’t important to me.”