Quinn Insurance administrator retracts evidence about executive

One of the administrators of Quinn Insurance issued a statement after yesterday's hearing retracting evidence he gave concerning the former Quinn Group executive Kevin Lunney and saying he regretted "any confusion on the matter".

During his evidence to the Employment Appeals Tribunal, Michael McAteer said Mr Lunney had been the subject of a directive from the Central Bank in 2008 concerning his working with Quinn Insurance.

However, in a later press statement, Mr McAteer said Mr Lunney was not subject to any such directive, contrary to what he had told the tribunal.

Mr McAteer told the tribunal that at the time of his appointment in March 2010, Mr Lunney was acting as head of claims and working on a consultancy basis.

The tribunal heard of a minute of a board meeting in 2009 in which it was recorded that Seán Quinn jnr was taking an active role in the Quinn Insurance sales function in Britain and that Mr Lunney was taking over from him as head of claims and would report to the board “via a dotted line” to Mr Quinn.

'Dotted line'
When tribunal chairman Tom Ryan asked what was meant by the dotted line reference, Mr McAteer said that, in his view, it was a mechanism "to circumvent the Central Bank".

At this point Barra Faughan, for Mr Quinn, said it was wrong of the witness to speculate and that if the company wanted to it should call Mr Lunney.

Mr McAteer said that after his appointment the role of head of claims was split in two and two people were appointed. He said he had discussed the issue with Mr Lunney and Mr Lunney had not mentioned Mr Quinn as a potential candidate for the position. He had mentioned Brian Storey and Declan Byrne, who were subsequently appointed.

This was in the summer of 2010 and Mr Quinn had never complained that his job had been replaced or that the two people should be reporting to him. He said Mr Quinn never operated as head of claims in the period since Mr McAteer’s appointment.

In June 2011, when Mr McAteer was in discussion with Mr Quinn about his future with Quinn Insurance, Mr Quinn had said he was head of claims and that Mr Lunney had reported to him.

However, Mr McAteer said he had not believed that that was the position.

Head of claims
Mr McAteer said that at one stage Mr Quinn was head of claims, but that at the time of his, Mr McAteer's appointment in March 2010, this role was being carried out by Mr Lunney.

He said the position of head of claims was a key one in an insurance company and one that was pivotal to the company’s commercial success.

In October 2008 the Financial Regulator imposed a fine of €3.25 million on Quinn Insurance and fined Seán Quinn snr €200,000 for failing to notify it about a loan of €288 million to a related company. The loan was made to fill the hole left by Anglo Irish Bank’s collapsing share price. As part of the settlement with the regulator, Mr Quinn snr resigned as chairman of the insurance company.

Mr Quinn’s unfair dismissal case was adjourned yesterday to a date in July. It is not known if Mr Lunney will be called by him to give evidence.