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BACKGROUND:A group employing 5,500 in Ireland in sectors as diverse as cement and chemicals overreached itself in financial services, write BARRY O'HALLORANand CAROLINE MADDEN

IT’S NOT so long since the media was breathlessly painting Seán Quinn as a brass-from-muck self-made man who turned a single lorry and an out-of-the-way quarry into a €4.7 billion fortune.