FINGLETON’S MISTRESS GOT £200K PAYOUT
This story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 21/02/2010
By: Michael O’Farrell and Philip Ryan
AN EXECUTIVE of Irish Nationwide who had an affair with its boss Michael Fingleton was later given a secret E200,000 settlement in a bullying case against the building society.
Fiona Couse, a one-time captain of the Irish women’s hockey squad, received her payout in 2002 after she took the bullying and harrassment case to the Equality Tribunal.
Mr Fingleton was named in her action and would have been required to give evidence had the society. defended the claim. The tribunal would also have to have been made aware of the previous relationship between him and Miss Couse, Irish Nationwide’s former head of compliance, in arriving at any judgment.
However, the claim was settled privately before such a potentially embarrassing hearing could take place, and Miss Couse walked away with E200,000 .
She acknowledged to the Irish Mail on Sunday that she had had an affair with Mr Fingleton but denied the subsequent case and the society.’s decision to settle it confidentially was in any way related to the affair. She said the settlement had been awarded a ‘significant period of time’ after the affair, adding: ‘And it wasn’t linked to it at all. It has absolutely nothing to do with it.’
Mr Fingleton neither confirmed nor denied the affair but insisted Irish Nationwide had acted properly in response to what was an internal employment claim.
Miss Couse is also understood to have written to the Central Bank and the Irish Nationwide board upon her departure, in which she outlined a number of compliance concerns at Irish Nationwide .
The handling of the bullying claim will raise fresh questions about Mr Fingleton’s stewardship of the society., which might have collapsed without the State’s E400bn banking guarantee in September 2008.
The scale of Nationwide’s bad debts, which are gradually being taken over by Nama, has led to it being labelled a ‘zombie bank’. It is likely to require at least E2bn of taxpayers’ cash in the near future.
Recent evidence has suggested that Mr Fingleton ran the society. as a personal fiefdom and personally approved huge loans to acquaintances without requiring the proper paperwork.
This includes a 107pc loan to former finance minister Charlie McCreevy at a time the society. did not issue 100pc loans, and a E2.5m loan to socialite Cindy Cafolla who supplied no supporting paperwork.
Now the shamed financier is likely to face questions about the way the society. handled the case brought by Miss Couse and the decision to settle it out of court rather than fight it.
Mr Fingleton refused to say if board members who approved the payout to Miss Couse knew of his previous relationship with her.
He said: ‘The matter was settled at the time for good and proper reasons and in the best interests of the Irish Nationwide Building Society, and all matters in relation to this case was dealt with by the chairman of the society. at that time.’
Mr Fingleton, who once studied to be a priest, did not directly address his affair with his former colleague. He remains married to his wife, Eileen, They have three adult children.
Mr Fingleton said he ‘categorically repudiated’ any suggestion ‘that the Irish Nationwide had incorrectly or improperly funded what was an internal employment claim brought by a former employee of the society.’.
He added: ‘This matter was settled at the time for good and proper reasons and in the best interests of the Irish Nationwide Building Society and all matters in relation to this case was dealt with by the chairman of the society. at that time.’ Miss Couse, once a renowned hockey sweeper and one of Ireland’s most capped players, turned out for the national team until the early 1990s, at one point coaching her club.
During her 20-year career with Irish Nationwide, she was one of a small number of senior executives who were close to Mr Fingleton .
Having begun her career in the insurance side of the business, she rose through the ranks to become mortgage administration manager in the 1990s. She accompanied Mr Fingleton to events the society. was sponsoring and was well known as one of his most trusted lieutenants.
By the time she left the society., she had taken over responsibility for compliance, one of the most senior jobs at the institution.
At the time of her settlement, it was reported that her once close working relationship with the chief executive had deteriorated to the point that negotiations had failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion for either party.
When approached by the MoS this week, Miss Couse acknowledged the affair but denied that it had had any bearing on the financial settlement she received. Referring to the settlement, she said: ‘It was a sexual… it was a harassment and bullying action that was taken under the guise of the director of equality investigations.
‘And that’s what that settlement was in relation to. It was in relation to nothing else.’
The payout was ‘based on my entitlement over 20 years’ service’. She denied that Mr Fingleton played any role in deciding the settlement since the matter had been handled by Irish Nationwide’s then chief general manager, Maurice Harte.
‘He wasn’t even involved in it… Maurice Harte was the person involved with it, and the company secretary. And it was unlikely that he [Mr Fingleton] could have been involved in so far as he was a named individual. So he would have been there from the point of view if it was necessary to have a witness or something like that.’
Mr Harte declined to comment on whether the board had been aware of the affair when the settlement was sanctioned, adding only that he had had a frustrating time at the society.
He declined to say whether Mr Fingleton had played a role in the settlement, saying: ‘I’d prefer not to answer that.’ An Irish Nationwide spokesman also declined to comment on a series of questions relating to the affair and also to the settlement .
But Con Power, a board member present at the time of the payout, told the MoS that he was totally unaware of the settlement .
Mr Power said he would not be surprised if the matter had never been raised at board level because of the personalised manner in which Mr Fingleton ran the institution.
‘I resigned because another case which was about to begin had not come to the board. It had never been discussed by the board,’ he said.
‘It’s entirely feasible. Because of the fact that I resigned for the reason I resigned, I’d believe it. It’s quite feasible, absolutely feasible.’
Neither Mr Power nor Mr Harte recalled a letter that Miss Couse is understood to have written to the Central Bank in which she outlined a number of compliance concerns at the society.
During Mr Fingleton’s tenure as head of the society., Irish Nationwide helped disgraced Anglo Irish boss Seán FitzPatrick hide multimillioneuro directors’ loans from the bank’s auditors. Every year, Nationwide lent Mr FitzPatrick enough money to pay off the loans for long enough to keep them off the annual accounts.
Mr Fingleton resigned in April of last year, more than three decades after he had taken over at the helm. He walked away as the sole beneficiary of a E27.6m pension scheme. He agreed to repay a E1m bonus he was awarded in 2008. But as of last month, he had still not done so.
Hypocrite! – Noel Dempsey changes law to allow bankers keep their directors’ loans secret
First published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 08/03/2009
By: Michael O’Farrell, Niamh Walsh
MINISTER Noel Dempsey changed the law to allow building society bosses to keep many of their directors’ loans secret, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The amendment – which was tacked on to the bottom of a completely unrelated piece of legislation and never publicised – allowed executives such as Irish Nationwide chief Michael Fingleton to keep many loans out of the public view for years.
Shortly after the law change, Mr Fingleton gave mortgages to his wife and son that did not have to be publicly disclosed.
Mr Dempsey’s intervention – made in his final days as environment minister before the 2002 general election – flatly contradicts his barnstorming ard fheis speech last week in which he aggressively denied his party had approved of loans to directors.
The minister, who accused bankers of doing more damage to Ireland than Cromwell, said his party had never known that directors were giving themselves massive loans.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it up to here with cheap-shot assumptions about members of this party,’ he said. ‘I categorically refute the unsupported rumours that Fianna Fáil approved of bank directors giving themselves huge loans or breaking any rules.
‘The smear that “if we had known, we’d have approved of such practices” is precisely that. A smear. We didn’t. We wouldn’t. We never will..
‘Ireland has been swamped by a global disaster that has been greatly complicated … by economic treason.
There’s no nicer way to describe what’s come out of one of the banks. It was economic treason.
No more. No less.’ But despite such claims, the MoS can reveal that the Government went out of its way to make it easier for loans to be kept out of the public eye. Until 2002, all loans to directors of building societies and family members had to be reported and publicly listed in a file to be submitted to the Central Bank.
For reasons of transparency and accountability, the Building Society Act of 1989 specifies that the file must be made available to members of the public who wish to see it.
But after a dozen years of the original Act, Mr Dempsey moved quietly to abandon this exercise in transparency by amending the original Act to allow many loans to be kept secret.
In a paragraph tacked onto the otherwise unrelated Housing (miscellaneous) Act 2002, Mr Dempsey allowed for all loans to family members and all loans against a director’s family home to be kept secret.
The MoS was unable to find any record of the change having been publicly debated in the Dáil or in any other forum..
There was no press release issued to announce the change.
Instead, debates on the legislation were largely confined to the fact that it enabled gardaí to forcibly evict travellers from illegal halting sites.
Last night, the Government refused to say why it had made the change or whether it had been lobbied to do so.
But as a direct result, details of many loans to building society directors such as Mr Fingleton are no longer reported.
Two loans that would have had to be reported had it not been for the law change, were mortgages from Irish Nationwide to Mrs Fingleton and Michael Fingleton Jr on December 2, 2003. These mortgages are only noted in the registry of deeds and were only discovered after an exhaustive search by this paper.
The trawl of mortgage deeds also reveals that Mr Fingleton received a directors’ loan from his own building society on January 29 this year.
The loan, for an unknown amount, is in the name of Mr Fingleton and his wife, Eileen, and is registered as a ‘further charge and consolidated loan’ against the couple’s family home. There are already several Irish Nationwide loans registered against the same property.
At the time of the latest loan, the banking controversy, sparked by directors’ loans to Anglo Irish chairman Seán FitzPatrick, had reached a crescendo, threatening to destabilise the entire economy and topple several financial institutions.
Mr Fingleton’s bank helped Mr Fitz- Patrick cover up the extent of his Anglo loans by temporarily allowing them to be transferred to Irish Nationwide at the end of each financial year.
This behaviour is now one of the strands of an ongoing investigation by the Financial Regulator whose staff raided the Irish Nationwide HQ last week.
A spokesman for the Financial Regulator would not comment on individual loans last night. But it is understood that the regulator is investigating all loans to all directors of financial institutions as part of its inquiries into the financial sector.
From this week, the Regulator is introducing new requirements that will force all financial institutions to disclose far more information on directors’ loans – an effective reversal of Fianna Fáil’s law change of 2002.
Irish Nationwide’s file in the Central Bank reveals that, until the reporting laws were changed in 2002, Mr Fingleton had far more directors’ loans from his own society than any of his fellow board members.
He is recorded as having borrowed E1.5m in the 10 years between 1991 and 2001. Other smaller loans amounting to several thousand each were also afforded to family members throughout this period.
The largest loan received by Mr Fingleton – for just under E1m – was granted in 1999 and is listed as having been for a seven-year term.
Other Irish Nationwide loans to Mr Fingleton ranged from E50,000 in November 1998 to just under E140,000 in December 1992.
Both the Environment Department and the Transport Department – where Mr Dempsey is now the lead minister – declined to comment on Friday, either to say why the change had been brought in or whether Mr Dempsey had been lobbied.
Sean Dunne’s Life In NAMA
Sean Dunne’s life in Nama
By Michael O’farrell and Valerie Hanley
Last updated at 10:55 PM on 6th December 2010
This is the luxurious U.S. mansion where developer Seán Dunne and his wife are living – even though many of his massive property loans are now owned by Nama.
The $8m house – which boasts an indoor swimming pool, tennis court, billiard and piano rooms – is close to another mansion which his wife Gayle bought and is now refurbishing.
Mrs Dunne has refused to say where she got the money for her €2m property – or how the couple are funding their lavish U.S. lifestyle.
Lavish: Sean and Gayle Dunne are staying at this luxury U.S. estateMr Dunne is not a man prone to hiding his light under a bushel – be it his plans to redevelop Ballsbridge at the height of the boom, his two-week rental of luxury yacht Christina O for his second marriage in 2004, or his close friendship with disgraced former taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
But recently, the former ‘Baron of Ballsbridge’ has been spending a great deal of time and effort shouting about what he doesn’t own.
Silence: Seán Dunne, pictured here with second wife, denies he has bought any house in the U.S. and Gayle refuses to answer any questionsFor the past month and a half, Mr Dunne has been relentlessly insisting he has nothing to do with the ownership of a luxury home in Greenwich, Connecticut, the weekend retreat of investment bankers and millionaire litigators.
Indeed, throughout that period Mr Dunne has instructed his Irish lawyers – the suitably impressive and doubtless expensive firm of Johnsons – to pursue anyone who suggests anything to the contrary.
Through them, Mr Dunne has denied repeatedly to the Irish Mail on Sunday that he has any financial or active interest in No38 Bush Avenue, a $2m period house in Greenwich that is currently being rebuilt from the ground up.
His lawyers have threatened to take legal action against the paper, insisting that to suggest he owned all or part of the house would be to imply he was guilty of perjuring himself by deceiving Nama.
So when the Irish Times reported that the house on Bush Avenue was his, Mr Dunne’s lawyers swung into action again – eventually forcing the ‘paper of record’ to issue a grovelling apology.
And Mr Dunne was also quoted in the fawning Sunday Independent – the Fianna Fáil-backed paper that, for years, drooled about the greatness of bankers, builders and Bertie Ahern – as saying: ‘I don’t own this house.
‘I don’t own any property in the U.S. whatsoever. Nor is any U.S. property including this house held in trust for me or by someone else on my behalf. I can’t be any clearer. I am blue in the face telling people.’
Yesterday, however, the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed the truth: the house isn’t owned by Seán Dunne at all… but it was bought in April this year by Gayle Killilea Dunne, the vivacious former gossip columnist who became the developer’s second wife after a high-octane meeting at the Galway Races in 2002.
Indeed, Mrs Dunne signed the house purchase contract for the property herself: and while No38 Bush Avenue was quickly transferred into a trust run by a discreet New York attorney, the documentation for the transfer was addressed to Mrs Dunne.
Furthermore, the Dunnes have rather indiscreetly told a number of neighbours and employees that the house will be their new family home – once they have completed another $1.5m of renovations on it.
(Plans for No38, submitted to Greenwich planning officials, include a swimming pool and a considerable expansion of the already sizeable home in one of America’s wealthiest communities, which boasts Diana Ross and several billionaires as residents.)
Plush: The house boasts an indoor pool and billiard room
This last weekend, Mr Dunne again said he had not bought the property or made ‘any financial contribution’ to its purchase.
His wife, however, refused to answer questions about where she got the cash, effectively claiming that it was nobody’s business but her own.
But as if this revelation was not enough, the MoS has made another extraordinary discovery: that while the couple are working on the new property, they are staying in a jaw-droppingly luxurious $8m mansion just around the corner.
The gargantuan mansion, which was recently advertised for rent at an eye-watering $17,500 a month, boasts five bedrooms, an indoor pool, a sunken tennis court and two acres of ornamental gardens. It even has a separate room for the grand piano and a billiards room.
And while Mr Dunne has no obvious legal claim on anything bought or rented by his wife – be it a house, a car or a diamond necklace – the fact that his wife owns one key property in question, and the pair are clearly living in the other, raises several questions that the couple are likely to have to answer sooner or later.
Where did Gayle – who has rarely been published in recent years as she trained to be a lawyer – get the money to pay for such a lavish new home?
Why exactly is Mr Dunne so desperate to disavow ownership of a property bought by his wife for the couple and their children to live in?
How on earth are the pair able to live in a $17,500-a-month home while the work on No38 is completed?
And most pressing of all, how are taxpayers meant to feel about any of this, given that Nama has promised us that the developers it controls (and who we are effectively keeping afloat) are going to have to give up their lives of luxury, their mansions and expensive cars?
The sound of money: The property even has a fantastic grand pianoThe extraordinary story of the Dunnes in the US goes back to October, when the MoS began investigating suggestions that Mr Dunne had bought a multimillion-dollar home in Belle Haven, the most exclusive area of Greenwich.
On October 27, we dispatched a correspondent – veteran New York reporter Annette Witheridge – to Connecticut to begin asking questions. It became immediately clear that the property in question was No38 Bush Avenue, which was in the process of being renovated.
Public documents showed it had been purchased in April for $2m and that a $1.5m renovation was planned.
The property’s exact ownership was not clear: it was registered in the name of a trust controlled by a prominent New York immigration lawyer, Philip Teplen.
But as soon as Miss Witheridge began asking questions, a string of people involved in the sale and renovation of the property told the MoS that the property was the Dunne family’s new home.
Miss Witheridge reported that she went to the area and asked which property was Seán Dunne’s: two neighbourhood security guards immediately identified No38.
Miss Witheridge then reported that Belle Haven estate agent David Ogilvy, who put the house on the market in 2008, told her he had shown Mr and Mrs Dunne around the property before the sale was completed by another local agent.
Mr Ogilvy also confirmed that the Dunnes had spoken to him about starting over in the US, according to Miss Witheridge’s report, which quoted him saying: ‘They both seemed perfectly amiable and want to start a new life in America. I can confirm Mr Dunne is the owner and I have seen him out and about here a few times.’
Those involved in the renovation of the property said they believed Mr Dunne was the owner and that he had taken a keen interest in the project. ‘I’ve met Mr Dunne on several occasions to go through the plans. I did the surveying work,’ said Irish surveyor Aidan McCann.
Some though were less forthcoming. ‘It’s under the name of the trustee, Mr Teplen. I can’t say anything about Mr Dunne,’ said project architect Cormac Byrne.
When the MoS contacted Mr Teplen, on the afternoon of Friday, October 29, at his desk in New York, he said he could not speak. ‘You have caught me at a bad time,’ he said.
‘I have three people sitting in front of me. But I will call you back if it is something I am involved in and can help you.’
He never returned the call.
Stinking rich: The marble-floored hallway and ornate dining room
On the same day, Miss Witheridge received an unsolicited telephone call from a man identifying himself as Keith Lynch. Mr Lynch said he’d just had a meeting with Bush Avenue’s architect, Mr Byrne, and surveyor, Mr McCann, and that he wanted to clear up some rumours.
Mr Lynch said he was working on the house with Steven Dunne – son of Seán Dunne – and that the project had nothing to do with Seán Dunne. He added that Seán Dunne had looked over the project but that was all.
On Saturday, October 30, Mr Dunne’s solicitor contacted the MoS to say Mr Dunne had been informed that the MoS was making inquiries. The lawyer stated that Mr Dunne was not ‘actively or financially’ involved in the development and that any such suggestion was unfounded.
The solicitor indicated that since his client was in Nama, the suggestion that he had bought a new home would imply that he had been untruthful, guilty of perjury and had deliberately sought to avoid his obligations under the Nama process.
Palatial: The Dunnes¿ $17,500-a-month mansion
The MoS agreed to withhold publication pending further inquiries and promised to give Mr Dunne 48 hours’ notice of any publication.
Miss Witheridge spoke to estate agent Mr Ogilvy again. He confirmed that he understood Mr Dunne was the owner of the property. Her report quotes the agent as saying: ‘It is Seán Dunne’s house… I went to the place with them a couple of times. Trust me, it is not his son’s house.’
Miss Witheridge spoke to Martha Drake of Sotheby’s, the agent who acted for the now-deceased seller of the house. Miss Witheridge quoted Mrs Drake as saying: ‘Seán Dunne bought the house but I don’t know what they are doing with it. But it was Seán Dunne.’
Meanwhile, another set of security guards identified photos of Mr Dunne and Gayle and said they had seen them walking in the area.
The MoS notified Mr Dunne’s lawyer of all of these comments and raised with him the possibility that Mrs Dunne might own the property, just as she owns Walford on Dublin’s Shrewsbury Road, Ireland’s most expensive house – which was bought in 2005 for €57m but is also held in a secretive trust.
This time, the denial stated that Mr Dunne had no interest, financial or otherwise, in No.38 Bush Avenue, that it was not being held in trust for him and that he did not have any ownership rights, and that he had not transferred funds to anyone else in order to facilitate the purchase.
But the lawyers added pointedly that they did not act for Gayle.
Oasis of calm: The rented house has 2.4 acres of ornamental garden, with views of the Atlantic
Then, on November 21, the Irish Times published two articles stating that the Dunnes had purchased No.38 and that renovations had been ordered to stop because too much of the home had been demolished.
The next day, Mr Dunne used the unquestioning Sunday Independent to issue his denial that he owned any US property. ‘I am sick to death of it,’ he said.
However, the MoS had contacted a neighbour who lives alongside No38. He did not wish to be named in our article but provided a statement that he has agreed can be passed to Mr Dunne’s legal team – and has confirmed that if challenged, he will stand over it publicly.
The neighbour, a retired executive with a world-wide brand, said he had met Seán Dunne a number of times to talk about No38.
‘From the beginning, he introduced himself as if he were going to live at No38 with his family. He used the word “neighbour” several times and I always understood he was talking to me as if he were planning to be a resident,’ the statement reads.
‘I subsequently met Mr Dunne on several occasions casually in the street and always came away with the same impression.’
The statement confirms that on November 14, Gayle called round to present a copy of revised plans for the home. ‘In every meeting up to and including November 14, when Mrs Dunne brought us the new plans, I was given the impression that the Dunnes owned and were going to live at No.38 as our neighbours,’ it reads.
The document details how Mr Dunne had irked some residents by flouting local noise rules.
‘I also complained about the noise of construction work on Saturdays, something our community rules forbid. Following the complaint, Mr Dunne came to my home and sat with me to discuss the matter.
He told me he did not have to obey the community rules since he was only legally bound to obey the town rules.
Tell tale signs: Gayle Dunne is snapped and the family is shown outside the luxury mansion
‘I would suggest to him that if he is interested in the reaction of the community to his project, he ought to be interested in the reaction of the community to the rules.’
The neighbour had been quoted by name in the Irish Times article – and says this provoked a furious reaction from the Dunnes.
‘On Saturday, November 20 I received a telephone call from Mrs Dunne, who complained and asked me why I had spoken to the Irish Times,’ his statement reads.
‘She insisted that she and her husband were only acting as the developers for No38. Later that day, Mr Dunne called from Ireland and asked me to sign a retraction. I refused and told him that I had said nothing other than what I had always believed to be the truth.’
So far, so unclear. Mr Dunne’s lawyers continued to send aggressively worded letters to the MoS, demanding that we assure them we would not suggest that he owned the house. Meanwhile, Mrs Dunne refused to answer questions.
Mr Dunne’s lawyers also repeatedly claimed the MoS was maliciously invading the Dunnes’ privacy: we pointed out that, given that taxpayers were funding the €80bn cost of Nama and the €150bn cost of the bank bail-outs, there was a clear public interest in pursuing this story.
Finally, this week, the MoS uncovered documentary evidence that Mrs Dunne had indeed bought No38. A copy of the actual house contract – verified by the MoS – confirms that the property was purchased in the name of Mrs Dunne on March 29, 2010.
Above her husband’s name – which is crossed out – the contract is signed ‘Gayle Killilea Dunne, purchaser’.
Work in progress: The house, No38, that is being done up. But is it by the Dunnes?
Other documentation related to the home is also addressed to Gayle Killilea Dunne before it was transferred into the name of ‘Philip H Teplen, Trustee’ on April 14.
The contract was secured with a $200,000 deposit, with the balance paid on completion of the sale.
Having established these facts, the MoS this weekend went back to Mr Dunne’s lawyers to ask two simple questions: Where did Mrs Dunne get the money to buy the house? And did Mr Dunne give her all or any of that money?
As we awaited an answer, the most bizarre twist in the tale was yet to come.
On their way back from visiting the Dunnes’ new neighbours at Bush Avenue, the MoS team asked a local if he knew where Seán Dunne was living.
He immediately pointed our reporter and photographer to No.421 Field Point Road – just a few hundred yards from the new property.
In the driveway, visible from the open road, was a silver Lexus Jeep of exactly the type driven by Mrs Dunne.
Could the Dunnes, despite Seán’s extraordinary debts, really be living in a house like this?
Owned by George Khouri, 63, and his wife Barbara, 62, the five-bedroom, 14,000sq.ft mansion is set in 2.4 acres overlooking the Atlantic. Built in 1923, the home was on the market in 2007 for more than $11m and, last February, was selling for $8m.
According to an article in the Greenwich Times, the property was recently rented for $17,500 a month.
Steeped in history, the property was first owned by Montgomery Evans, a man of letters and friend of Ernest Hemingway and Sylvia Pankhurst. Another Evans friend was the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, who relished in his nickname ‘the Great Beast’ and was once described as the ‘wickedest man in the world’.
But the most striking thing about the home is its opulence. A sales brochure highlights crystal chandeliers, the sumptuous bathrooms, the music room and the billiards room, with its deep-pile red carpet matching the felt on the table.
It beggars belief that the Dunnes could afford to live in such high style and it certainly contradicts Nama’s public utterances.
In May, chief executive Brendan McDonagh told a Dáil committee that indebted developers ‘displaying obvious wealth [are] almost in defiance of us.’
Just two weeks ago, chairman Frank Daly told the Oireachtas that Nama would be strict on developers who continued to be in denial about their lifestyles.
‘The jets, the yachts, the Bentleys will not be supported by Nama,’ Mr Daly said.
Yet the Dunnes are living in just such style in their €17,500-a-month mansion. Any lingering doubts were erased on Friday afternoon as Gayle cruised out through the gates, heading for a spot of shopping in Greenwich town.
On Saturday night, Mrs Dunne said in a statement that ‘her place of residence and her finances are not legitimate matters of public interest’. She claimed that, despite her high profile career as a writer, in which she often talked about her own life, she was ‘not a public person’.
She added that she had ‘no bank debts with any bank covered by the Irish Government guarantee and for absolute clarity is not the subject of any Nama loans.’
She also said she was ‘not obliged to answer media queries of any nature’. What she did not say, though, was where she had got the money to buy and renovate a $2m house – or how she was able to live in a $17,500-a-month mansion in the meantime.
ENDS
Fine Gael – Secret Cash From Developers: Hundreds of Thousands of Euro Handed Over At Lavish Golf Events
THIS MUST BE ADDED – http://www.greenparty.ie/news/latest_news/fine_gael_s_u_turn_on_political_funding_after_just_one_hour
Fine Gael has secretly raised hundreds of thousands of euro from business donors including property developers, bankers and the racing industry, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
An investigation by this paper has established that the party has been able to bring in up to €150,000 a time by hosting businessmen to lavish golf days at luxurious British and Irish courses.
Fine Gael this weekend refused to disclose how much it has received from such gifts, or to identify the companies that have helped it build up a €3m election war chest.
Swing: Enda Kenny who proposed to clean up politics scrapped a corporate donations banAnd thanks to our antiquated funding laws, the corporate donations do not have to be declared publicly as long as each payment is less than €5,000.
Personal donors can each give up to €630 each without ever having to be identified or their donation being made public.
However, the MoS has discovered that the donors have in the past included controversial tycoon Johnny Ronan’s Treasury Holdings, which is now in Nama, and construction industry giant CRH, which was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the housing boom.
Other businesses which have fielded teams at the fundraising golf days include the EBS Building Society and Martinstown Stud, owned by wealthy financier JP McManus.
Ironically, Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan banned such corporate donations when he was party leader in 2001, telling his members that such ‘gifts’ always came with an expectation of something in return.
However his party has since reversed that position and this weekend defended both the practice of taking cash from businesses – and refusing to say who is helping Enda Kenny and his party in their attempts to take power.
The golf classics – which raise just as much as the controversial Fianna Fáil Galway Races tent – are the brainchild of Fine Gael’s fundraising supremo, Anne Strain who has made millions for the party.
A former charity fundraiser, Miss Strain was headhunted by Mr Kenny eight years ago when he threw out Mr Noonan’s ban on corporate funding.
Teams of four pay up to €2,000 each – or €500 per man – to play while companies sponsor individual holes for sums of €5,000.
Each golf event can raise up to €60,000 in donations which under current political donation laws do not have to be declared at all.
Leader board: Johnny Ronan’s Treasury Holdings won a 2005 classicOther events such as sponsored dinners and lunches also raise up to €20,000 an outing in under-the-limit donations from corporate and other sponsors. In addition, a members’ draw raises more than €1m annually for Fine Gael.
‘Fine Gael say they want change and that the Irish people want change, but all they are offering is to replace one party backed by a tight cabal of wealthy corporate donors with another one,’ said Green Party candidate Oisín Ó hAlmhain, who challenged Fine Gael to publish its list of corporate donors.
The practice of accepting secret donations has also been criticised by the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO).
Aside from Fine Gael’s Eastern Regional Golf Classic at the K Club and its Southern Classic in Adare, the party also hosts a London tournament at Moor Park Golf Club.
Yet Fine Gael keeps the identity of these donors secret as it is entitled to do since donation laws allow individuals to secretly contribute up to €634 and companies to secretly give up to €5,078.
The last tranche of SIPO declaration statements by political parties – for 2009 – confirm this, with both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael declaring no donations whatsoever despite the fact that 2009 was a local and by-election election year.
Issuing its most recent report, SIPO said that laws which were meant to increase transparency in politics were not working and that a new approach was needed.
‘The provisions aimed at ensuring transparency and openness in relation to disclosure of donations remain ineffective. It should be possible for each citizen to have a clear picture of election spending by each candidate and party and also a clear indication of the sources for such funding,’ the report reads.
‘If the intention of the legislation is to provide for transparency and openness in relation to party funding and expenditure, then it is not achieving this aim.
How golf made FG a secret fortune
Enda Kenny says he will clean up our politics: so why won’t he come clean over all the donations his party has taken from construction firms, racing yards and developers?
On February 10, 2001 then-Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan made a bold and brave political move – one his own party has refused to accept ever since.
In his first action as Fine Gael’s new leader he instructed all party employees and trustees to accept no more corporate donations.
‘All over the world, it is recognised that financial support from business to politicians is perceived by the public to have one purpose – the securing of commercial advantage,’ he said.
‘Claims that such donations are made from disinterested motives are simply not believed… As the lurid tribunal scandals play out before our eyes, one thing is clear. We cannot restore politics until the perceived link between political contributions and public policy is broken.’
Winner: JP McManus’s Martinstown Stud came fifth at one FG golf classicMr Noonan had good reason to be wary of the perceptions created by corporate donations. In a six-year period up to 2000, his party was gifted £112,680 by businessman Denis O’Brien – much of it through golf classics.
The donations have now become legendary and will feature as part of the subject matter of the long-awaited Moriarty Tribunal report.
But by May 2002 – when Fine Gael was thrashed in the general election of that year – the next leader had no qualms about corporate donations.
As soon as he took over, Enda Kenny scrapped the corporate donations ban and once again opened the doors to business funding. An internal report by party strategist Frank Flannery urged a far more targeted and professional approach to fundraising if Fine Gael was to have any chance of matching the funding raised by Fianna Fáil’s infamous Galway tent and other events primarily supported by developers and construction companies.
Mr Kenny agreed and Anne Strain, a renowned Dublin-based fundraiser was headhunted from the Alzheimer Society of Ireland where she had raised millions for charity.
An extremely energetic and enthusiastic individual, she was in place in Fine Gael HQ before the end of 2002.
Since then, a reinvigorated national members’ draw has raised €9.3m in ticket sales. Last year, the party sold 15,395 tickets at €80 a go, channelling €1.2m into its election fund.
Ostensibly the draw is aimed at Fine Gael party members but it has in the past been deliberately targeted at corporate donors – even when Mr Noonan’s ban was in place.
In 2001, general secretary Tom Curran wrote on party-headed notepaper to company executives who were known to have donated to the party in the past. ‘I am writing to you on a personal level to offer you the opportunity of helping to fund democracy,’ he wrote, asking each donor to purchase books of tickets for €250.
The draw aside, Miss Strain also opened up other avenues of fundraising.
The single most important development in that regard was the introduction of professionally run golf classics at which companies and wealthy individuals were encouraged to provide sponsorship in return for teeing off with Enda Kenny and members of his front bench.
Legally, any company donation made at these events does not have to be disclosed anywhere as long as it is less than €5,078.95. Similarly, donations from individuals which are less than €634.87 also remain secret.
Now each year the party’s golf classics take place at the opulent K Club in Co. Kildare, at the salubrious Adare Golf Club in Limerick, and the luxurious Moor Park Golf Club in London – one of the most exclusive clubs in Britain.
Although no details of those present at these events are made public, an MoS investigation was able to establish the names of the winners of some of these golf classics.
Developers Treasury Holdings topped the winners’ list at Fine Gael’s 2005 Eastern Regional Golf Classic in the K Club, with construction giants CRH Plc coming in third place.
It is not known – and Fine Gael is not prepared to say – who represented these firms, how much they donated or whether they are routinely present at FG golf classics.
‘I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ said CRH finance director and board member Maeve Carton when contacted by the MoS this weekend.
Treasury Holdings MD John Bruder did not respond to a message left on his home phone. Other winners’ lists – this time from the 2009 Southern Region Golf Classic in the Adare Golf Club – reveal that Martinstown Stud, the home stud farm of JP McManus, recorded a fifth-place finish. Prominent Cork construction firm McCarthy Developments finished in third place.
A request for comment about the value of the donations made by Martinstown Stud and McCarthy Developments went unanswered by both companies this weekend.
This weekend, Fine Gael once again declined to make public its corporate donation lists, or how much each attendee pays.
In theory, the same company could have donated €5,000 annually for a decade – a total of 50,000 – without ever being identified publicly. Furthermore company executives and associates can make additional secret donations as individuals.
Evidence which emerged last year suggests that companies routinely pay several thousand euro to sponsor individual holes at such events, while each individual team member can often be expected to fork out €500.
Michael O’Flynn, a Nama developer, was named as a corporate sponsor. Mr O’Flynn sponsored a €1,500 fourball and was joined by a number of others, including estate agent Arthur French.
The O’Flynn Group also paid an undisclosed sum to sponsor the 18th hole at the K Club event. Also taking part in last year’s K Club Classic was accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and EBS CEO Fergus Murphy.
When it made its 2006 financial accounts available to an academic, Fine Gael had listed total earnings from golf classics of €100,905.
With the prospect of FG taking power, last year’s outings are estimated to have earned much closer to €150,000 – about the same amount that Fianna Fáil used to raise from its Galway tent.
Fine Gael also runs scores of local classics for candidates, which Enda Kenny will often attend. The same is true of business lunches and dinners. These kind of events typically raise about €20,000 for the candidate.
In 2008, the party also ventured abroad raising €30,000 through a New York dinner packed with corporate and private donors – all making donations that are below the declaration limit in Ireland.
For years Fine Gael – and Fianna Fáil – have declared no donations whatsoever in official donation statements to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) because all of the money taken in from each donor was below the declarable limit.
The practice has alarmed many, including SIPO, since there is no way of knowing what political influence donors may be buying.
Or, as Michael Noonan said 10 years ago: ‘We cannot restore politics until the perceived link between political contributions and public policy is broken.’
The question now is, with the office of finance minister within his reach, does he still believe what he said then?
By Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent,
The Irish Mail on Sunday.
Fugitive Solicitor Michael Lynn Interviewed On The Run
Photo Credit: Sean Dwyer
“I don’t know what it’s like to be in jail. I’ve only watched Prison Break. But I don’t see why I should go to jail. I am not going to be made a scapegoat for the bankers’ – Michael Lynn.
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent
FOR a man under so much strain, Michael Lynn appears remarkably calm – as his piercing blue eyes and steady voice carefully and deliberately emphasise every point he makes. Those attributes, and his famed ability to charm, once reassured high-flying bankers to part with millions.
Now they seek forgiveness and appear genuinely contrite – even if he knows that many will struggle to believe him after everything they have read in the past year.
‘I was on my own personal drug of ambition fuelled by the desire to succeed,’ he says, repeatedly raising both hands to his head as if even he can’t believe what happened.
‘Today I look in the mirror and ask myself who he was? I am disappointed that I lost some of my own fundamental principles that I was given as a young fellow. I have let my family down and I have let myself down. And that’s difficult and I need to live with that all of the time. But that’s my problem, that’s my bed and I have made it. The mistakes that I have made, I have to live with the consequences.’
Dressed simply in a creased, casual sports top, jeans and trainers he insists that he is determined to rectify the damage he openly accepts responsibility for.
‘I read some of the papers and see the reports on the internet and I think: “God I’d love to meet that fellow they’re writing about.” ‘Because it is not me, the high flyer they speak of. I’m an ordinary guy who had huge ambitions and who made huge mistakes. So I don’t want celebrity status. I do want to have a normal life if possible and I can only do that when I have done the right thing. I have to do the right thing first.
‘I have to also understand the consequences that that has had for other people. I am aware of how I have affected other people’s lives – the investors who invested with me – and I am truly sorry that the plan, the vision that I had, was interrupted because I never intended them to suffer and they have.’
The vision he speaks of – and he uses the term incessantly when he reverts to business-speak – is by now familiar to all as his now-defunct company, Kendar.
‘I had visualised a dream. I wanted to achieve, aggressively, growth in terms of Kendar as a company. I was driven by it.’
So too, we now know, were many in the banking world: and in the wake of the banking scandals of the past six months, his scornful claims about the insatiable greed of the bank bosses seems all too plausible.
‘I don’t want to sound arrogant when I say it was easy to get money,’ he says. ‘It was the way things were in Ireland. We have to understand that I’m a product of the system. Yes I am responsible for me but I am a product of the system.
‘I bought my first house with a 95pc mortgage. I was only starting my own business as a lawyer so I had no assets. My mother lent me £15,000, which I paid back to her. My second house I bought for €110,000 and I got a mortgage of €125,000. And that’s against valuations.
‘There was an absolute understanding in Ireland of “How much do you want?” It was a complete and utter disaster waiting to happen. All they wanted was cash-flow capacity in terms of perception and it was: “How do we give you the money?” ‘The banks couldn’t get enough of me. And if you were to get sight of certain decisions by credit committees you would see that they discussed openly my property portfolio abroad. When they were considering the merits of giving me a loan for an asset at home they would know about my development abroad. That’s their decision. They were their choices and it was all of our choices to borrow the money.
‘The banks were very interested in my story. They were very excited, as were my professional advisers and fellow directors. Very excited by the amount of money that could be made and we were all – including myself – following the trend. I was the Celtic Cub out of control in hindsight. And I was greedy and overambitious. But yes there were other parties involved. They didn’t conspire; we were all part of a mythical illusion.’
Now, though, he appears intent on accepting his share of the blame and unlike many in the banking world he has no qualms about apologising.
‘The critical thing for me is I owe the money to the banks. I have to repay the banks or do a deal with the banks. I am not immune to the global crisis. I didn’t cause it, contrary to what certain people might think, and I understand my responsibilities but I can’t do it overnight. I’ve got to try and sort it out as well as I can.
‘I owe the Irish banks money. I acknowledge that debt. I don’t deny it.’
Also acknowledged is an estimated E 12.5m debt to investors, many of whom handed over life savings for apartments in Portugal, Budapest, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
‘The reason I am constantly travelling throughout Europe is to try to realise the one thing that’s important to me, which is to honour the investor commitments in so far as it is reasonable and physically and financially possible to either get all or part of their money back or else give them the apartment they wanted.
‘These people did no wrong. I am sorry for what happened to them and I believe right now the key question for me is that if I am sorry I have to show it by action as opposed to just words because that’s just bulls**t – words.’
The problem for Lynn, though, is that in the Irish courts he stands accused of taking out multiple mortgages on the same property with different banks… sometimes with signatures that, the courts have heard, are forged. In short, he’s been painted as a fraudster and a thief. It is a label he furiously disputes.
‘Absolutely not. Absolutely not,’ he says when asked. ‘I never had a plan to steal from people. I’m Irish, I’m from Mayo. I want – I would have wanted – to have lived in Ireland. I had an intention to live abroad for a period of time but I never intended to be as I am at the moment. It’s like every day is a Good Friday. You know when you go to a country and say: “God I’d love to live out there?” Try living out there and not being allowed the choice of returning.’
However when it comes to explaining the multiple mortgages on his houses, he struggles to find a way of outlining in simple terms what really went on.
‘If you want to get to the key question – did I act fraudulently and had I two and three mortgages against the same property? – it’s true I had extensive borrowings. That’s absolutely true.
‘But it’s also true that the acts that I engaged in and the misguided deeds – on the basis of advice from various professionals and the acceptance of certain parties – was probably misguided. But was it fraudulent? I do not believe so.’
What he appears to be hinting at, however obliquely, is that while there were a lot of mortgages, nobody was deceived: that in the rush to make money out of him, blind eyes were turned and corners were cut.
‘The intention and plan was all built into the entire Kendar scheme. Not one bank which lent to me refused the commission or the plaudits that would have been gained by bank managers for the loans that they extended. I never had any difficulty with any of my loans. The monthly instalments were always repaid fully. And I would argue that this was not something that people were aware of.’
When pressed again on the issue of multiple loans he returns once more to a similar theme.
‘It’s true that the borrowings I had were extensive against the portfolio. But in order to understand that, it’s critical that you understand the agreements which were in place with the banks and that’s a matter between me and the banks. The only thing I admitted was that I owe them the money.’
Clearly he is displeased at the manner he is being portrayed in Ireland.
‘Can I just say one thing about this. Everywhere in the press you see “Michael Lynn: fugitive who absconded with €80m.” But I am not running from anybody, contrary to expectation, and when I left Ireland, my statement of affairs showed assets of €65m.’
To prove it he even says he would have no problem meeting fraud squad investigators immediately if they wish to visit him.
‘No problem,’ he shrugs. ‘The word fugitive is somebody who is a criminal, who is being chased and who is trying to escape the arm of the law.
It’s true that I am wanted in Ireland for a civil offence of failing to appear in Ireland for a court hearing in December 2007. That’s a fact.
But that’s a civil case which was investigating me as a lawyer. ‘I haven’t spoken to gardaí but my lawyer has spoken to them on a number of occasions and has made them aware that I am available for a meeting. We have no problem meeting them to answer the questions they wish to put to me for any investigation.’
That investigation and the court proceedings already taken against him have, he says, left him with nothing.
‘I own absolutely nothing. The bank – AIB – have seized in Portugal the property that I own as an individual..They also seized the 50pc interest I own in my own home in Portugal and they are trying to sell that as well. They took everything in fairness. They didn’t refuse me. So I have no property in Ireland. The only hope I have of having any property in Ireland is that my brother will let me walk on the farm in Crossmolina.’
It is clear as he speaks that after more than a year away from Ireland, he is now seriously considering a return – whatever the consequences.
‘The truth is I want to go back. The life that I am leading and the pressure is tough. I have a wonderful wife. She has been extremely loyal to me and loyal to us as a couple. I am extremely lucky and Ireland is where I am from. It’s my home.
‘I have seen my family. They have been so loyal, something that I appreciate hugely. It can’t be easy for them. You know, I have to say sorry but I have to do something about it as well. Sincere apologies are important but it’s important to have something behind it as well.’ And what future career would he like to pursue? ‘I don’t want to be a country and western singer,’ he says laughing.
‘I still think I have talent in business and I still have a belief in myself and I think I know now who I am. This has been – this is – a very difficult journey but for me what’s most important is that I am willing to put up my hand and say: “I was responsible and I was captain of the ship.” ‘And it’s important that at a crucial time I am not wasting time engaging in finger-pointing but trying to find solutions. Finger pointing can wait. But I won’t leave that without revisiting it.’
And it seems a return home may be on the cards even if that means a spell in jail. ‘I had discussions with my lawyer regarding the prospect of returning to Ireland and facing up to my responsibilities and the responsibilities of others.
‘I’d like to return to Ireland and the lawyer is investigating going to court on the basis that: “He is no longer a lawyer, these proceedings are finished, he’s entitled to return.” Or if the court were to say no, he has to serve one month, two months, three months, then I may return to serve that. I would like to return to Ireland if I can but what’s critical is that I can’t return until I have the investors absolutely secured. That’s the truth.’
Burning within him, however, is very clearly a sense that while he has got things terribly wrong, he is not a bad man, or indeed a criminal; and that he is simply not going to swing for the crimes of the Celtic Tiger while others who made fortunes slink off into the background.
‘Whatever the road I’m on presents me with, I have to meet those challenges.
I don’t know what it’s like to be in prison. I have only watched Prison Break. I wouldn’t see any reason why I would have to go to prison and the one thing I want to make clear is I am not going to be a scapegoat for others.
‘Absolutely not. I am not going to be used as an example for what was recognised as an acceptable form and practice of business by bankers, lawyers, accountants and auctioneers.
I am not going to be the poster boy who ends up in prison to my cost alone.’
Lynn also revealed how close he had come to breaking down under the strain as his empire collapsed.
‘I have lost everything in Ireland and I think it’s important that people understand that regardless what image people have of the individual who borrowed this extensive amount of money, there is a human being behind it. And that when this occurred it was a major, major shock. And suddenly they are taking your property left right and centre.’
Inevitably the strain took its toll.
‘I realised these guys want to morally, commercially beat me into a pulp until I simply go: “Take me, I am wrong”, and I just collapse.’
And he talks with astonishing frankness of his lowest point: the day when he almost collapsed as abruptly as his property empire.
‘There was one Friday when I came home to my wife and there was a rugby match on. But I didn’t see a rugby match. I saw nothing. I sat in front of the TV and I stared at the TV and I was lost. ‘My wife contacted her doctor and we ended up down in St Pat’s [St Patrick’s psychiatric hospital on Dublin’s St James’s Street] and they were going to admit me. I was there for two hours and I decided: “No I’m not going in there. Absolutely not. They can take every asset of mine but they are not going to defeat me. I will survive this and I will survive it because I must.” And I have. It was very difficult emotionally and personally and it still is.
‘I can’t go back to Ireland and that’s not really the way that I want to live my life nor is it the life that I wish to impose on my family or others.’
Michael Lynn Interview Part Two.
‘I was told: ‘F**k the small investors pay the banks.’ But I’ll pay it all back’
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent
AS MICHAEL LYNN tells it, the plan was simple. Too simple, perhaps.
‘I had a definite business plan,’ he says preparing the way for an ill-timed joke. ‘I didn’t just have two mortgages on one property.’
When he speaks of the personal toll his ill-judged choices have had on his family he at times comes close to tears, if only for a split second. But when the subject is business, he automatically reverts back into what was once a well-oiled and clearly successful pitch for funding.
‘To explain this, the first thing I need to present to you is that Kendar had a plan and a vision and it was a real plan in terms of its property portfolio and the managing of its investments abroad. Its plan was that Kendar as a company – which is separate to Michael Lynn as an individual – would very simply acquire property abroad, that it would work that asset, sweat the asset to increase its value and thereafter sell the asset into a fund.
‘The banks loved it. ‘I’d reached the point with the banks that they were going to invest with me in shopping centres in Budapest. And with Anglo Irish I was buying it for €27.5m and they had a loan offer to give me €30m – against a contract purchase of €27.5m – figure that one out.’
But Lynn, who persuaded politicians such as former taoiseach Albert Reynolds and sportsmen such as rugby Shane Byrne to help publicise his projects, wanted to go a step beyond the banks, to equity funds, raising even more money. ‘The plan was then to sell that into a fund and we had discussions and negotiations extensively throughout the period February to July 2007.
‘Our plan was to sell the asset into the fund with the increased value. Giving a practical example I buy land at €100. You get it rezoned, it’s immediately worth €150 or €160. You get planning permissions on it, it’s worth €250 or €300 and then you sell forward apartments and suddenly you have this package deal that’s a secure investment for a fund to take on.
‘We had interest from three different funds, one an American fund. We had also discussed the possibility of floating through AIM [the stock market’s Alternative Investment Market] as a company and also we had interest from one Irish consortium fund group.’ He refuses, point blank, to reveal the names of the funds which were interested in investing. But he reveals that his plan was to effectively become a project manager for the fund’s property investments.
‘The division of the agreement we were putting forward was that this fund would come forward and buy this property and that they would employ Kendar to manage the build, the provision of the apartments for the end users and that we would receive a project management fee.’
Had it worked he insists everyone would have been repaid.
‘What was envisaged was that there would be a profit from that. And that all the loans Michael Lynn personally put into Kendar in Ireland, or in the companies abroad, would then be recouped and repaid to all of the individual banks.’
But it didn’t work – in a spectacular and by now infamous fashion. And while intent on rectifying the damage done, Lynn is clearly not prepared to accept all the responsibility.
‘The reason it didn’t work was because all of the banks collectively decided against me and because the Law Society intervened in my practice. But the Law Society didn’t just intervene in my practice. They also closed the accounts of the operating company, Kendar Holdings. I am very confident that if Kendar had been allowed to continue as an operating vehicle it would have worked.
‘Perhaps there would not have been confidence in Michael Lynn. I would have had no choice but to step down as a manager – but assets are assets and one thing that we can pride ourselves in is that we acquired good assets in good locations. We weren’t just borrowing money to buy sweets. I don’t believe the Law Society should have frozen Kendar’s accounts but that was the decision of the High Court. And the directors of Kendar, at the time, tried to get legal advice for Kendar and they were refused by 25 legal firms in Dublin. This left the investors in jeopardy, with absolutely no information and Kendar became somewhat a rudderless ship because staff not being paid began to walk.’
But even before that, wasn’t Michael Lynn Inc in trouble – having already received multiple mortgages against the same properties?
‘Well, let me put it like this. The scheme that was in place in relation to Michael Lynn’s borrowings would have paid them. In October I went to the Law Society and admitted that I owed the banks money. I never dealt with the issues of double and treble mortgaging. The key questions need to be asked of other individuals.
‘The difficulty arose in that key individuals who bore responsibility on behalf of Kendar to the investors did not honour their obligations and were happy to point the finger at myself using my own difficulties to remove their own moral or commercial responsibility. Many people ran like hell. People who were responsible individuals. They absolutely vanished, ran out the door.’
By his own admission, Lynn now owes some €13m to private investors – in addition to the millions due to banks.
‘Let me give it to you jurisdiction by jurisdiction,’ he says. ‘In Portugal, investors are [owed] approximately in or around €3.2m. In Bulgaria, €5m. Slovakia, €60,000. Budapest, €4.2m.’
And just how much does he actually owe the banks? ‘I don’t want to be flippant but I understand it’s €80m. That’s what I understand.’
Apparently determined to pay investors back, Lynn says he considered going into receivership before he left Ireland. But this, he claims, would have left ordinary investors left wanting, as the banks jumped to the top of the queue.
‘In one meeting, people consistently referred to the investors as the little people. I never remember any of the investors as being leprechauns. That’s one thing that I took grave offence at because I felt the establishment were telling me: “Listen Michael, you can f**k the small guys. Just pay something for the banks and it will be all grand.” ‘I was told by one adviser: “Michael if you help the banks out – even if you give then 10 cent, 20 cent in the euro – there will be no criminal charges against you.” I made it clear, in relation to any receiver, that there had to be a plan, a coherent plan, that could give me some satisfaction that the investors’ investment would be given due recognition alongside the banks.’ But the liquidation was abandoned, partly because it would have also proved expensive. ‘The advice at the time was that the Irish costs would be a minimum of E2m or E3m. Then you would have the costs for each country. All I saw was a jolly for the professionals.
‘It made absolutely no sense from a commercial point of view. It was about: “Get the money in.” But in reality, I was saying: “This requires time and you will get much more money in. You have the purchasers, you have the sales, honour those contracts and you get everyone out.” But the attitude of the advice I got was that I should just sell, sell, sell.’
So after coming close to being checked into a psychiatric hospital he left Ireland and now says he is steadily working to secure a return for his investors.
‘Regarding Budapest we have a situation where the assets have been preserved for the creditors. Presently they are trying to sell them. In relation to Budapest I want to make it clear… The investors must receive the money… Currently the assets have been preserved for the investors and the only issue that requires resolution is that the correct list of investors are looked after. I believe it is important that we ensure in Budapest that one group of investors is not preferred over another.’
In Bulgaria, where his assets have been sold to firms in Panama and the Seychelles, he says the interests of the 300-plus investors who bought apartments off plan in Bansko is secured..
‘There is a project management company which will be appointed in Bulgaria which has nothing to do with me. It’s an independent company in its own right. A decision will be taken by the company together with some of the investors in Ireland about whether to build out or sell the asset. In relation to the direct clients, one individual is being selected who will go to Ireland and meet them himself. From my point of view I want to make it clear that the contractual commitment these companies have is a real commitment to me to honour and recognise the legitimate interest of all of these investors in that land.
‘Firstly they must be given legal guarantees against that land and that’s a declaration which must be honoured. So it’s clear under Bulgarian law that the Irish investors must be protected.’ In Portugal’s Algarve, Lynn says the as-yet-unbuilt second phase of his Cabanas development will also be completed.’
The development was previously run through Lynn’s Kendar company but is now known as Vantea – a firm in which Lynn claims to have no stake.
‘In Portugal the intention is to finish the infrastructure and begin building on phase two. From Vantea’s point of view there are approximately 60 purchasers who will be honoured and there is no question regarding that. The plan is to build sufficient apartments to satisfy existing purchasers. Vantea have recognised that in the current global crisis there is no point in building 203 units when you have sold 60. You build enough apartments to fulfil the commitments to the people who have agreed to buy.’
All of this will be welcomed by those who must have thought their money was gone – if of course they believe it. Lynn is acutely aware that many will simply not believe his assurances.
But he insists he will come through, perhaps even returning to face his responsibilities in Ireland.
‘I do not intend to lie down until such time as I have ensured that I can retrieve as much of their money as I physically and humanly can or to provide them with adequate security in terms of providing the product they entered into a contract with Kendar to obtain.’
Time will tell..
Paul Quinn – Murdered By The IRA
Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent
THEIRS was supposed to be the generation that enjoyed peace in Northern Ireland. She was just eight years old when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. He was 11. The fact that neither 18-year-old Emma Murphy nor her boyfriend Paul Quinn, 21, had any particular interest in politics as they grew up bore testimony to that hopeful new era.
Nowadays, children in border areas are no longer familiar with the frequent thump of army helicopter blades overhead or the sight of heavily armed troops on patrol.
But for previous generations, it was next to impossible to avoid support or sentiment for one side or the other. And the brutal reality of violence or death was never far away.
Now though, the war is supposed to be over. People like Emma and Paul are supposed to be able to enjoy their lives as any other young couple would – going out to Switch nightclub in Castleblayney at weekends and sitting in watching DVDs during the week.
Until a month ago, that’s just what they did. The pair – he from Cully-hanna in south Armagh and she from Oram just across the border in Monaghan – had known each other for five years.
The very best of friends, they would sit together in the evenings to watch Home And Away and other soaps. More recently, they had begun a closer relationship.
‘This past year, we would be texting each other all the time. But it’s only the past seven months that we were always with each other. It was just on Friday – the day before it happened – that he actually asked me to go steady,’ an emotion-choked Emma told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘We were in his house all day and he asked me and I stayed the night there and then Saturday morning I went to work.’ The next time Emma saw her new boyfriend, his life was draining away onto the cold, concrete floor of a nearby hay barn.
He died shortly afterwards, his body battered almost beyond recognition in a chilling and premeditated attack that was given the nod by some of the Provisional IRA’s best-known figures.
Emma, a child of peacetime, now knows what it’s like to hold a dying man; to watch as he flails about helplessly in agony, both of his arms and legs broken, his head and face a mass of bruises.
‘It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed in my life. It was the hardest thing I ever witnessed in my life,’ she said.
The war may be over but those who fought it still consider themselves the law around here. The men – at least nine of them – who were their subordinates, made sure Paul Quinn knew just that in the early evening of Saturday, October 20.
‘You know who polices this place,’ they repeated as they intensified their beating – a punishment ordered because Paul, too tough for his own good, had confronted associates and family members of a local IRA leader.
Dressed in boiler suits and facemasks, each attacker wore latex gloves to guard against leaving clues. Meticulously planned, the gang had thought of every last detail, from lookouts, getaway transport to disposal of weapons and clothes. Even the floor of the barn was sprayed with disinfectant to erase any traces of biological evidence.
At home, just a couple of miles away from the isolated farmyard where Paul had been lured to his death, Emma had no idea her life would never be the same.
That changed with a phone call from Brendan Nugent, a friend of Paul. ‘Call an ambulance,’ his tense voice said. ‘There’s been a row.’ Neither the emergency operator nor Emma were quite sure whether the call was a joke or not so she went to see for herself.
‘When I got down there, Paul’s friend came up the yard and started trying to hold me and wouldn’t let me go down the yard.
‘But I ran past him and went down the yard and I saw Paul lying in there and I rang the ambulance and told them to get out as soon as they could.’ DRESSED in his county jersey and tracksuit bottoms, Paul was lying in a pool of blood to the right hand side of a red corrugated iron shed. He was trying to move, to turn himself over but with every limb broken, couldn’t make his legs or arms work.
‘He didn’t really open his eyes much. He was just more or less moaning and screaming with the pain. He was in a bad way. I thought first that he had got bullet shots in his legs but it wasn’t bullet shots, it was actually the bone sticking out of his knee.
‘I just kept trying to keep him calm. He kept trying to turn himself over but he couldn’t so I kept my hand on him to stop him trying to turn around.
‘Then he kept telling me to take him home and I kept telling him I couldn’t take him home, that there was an ambulance coming. He kept asking when was the ambulance coming but he couldn’t even say the sentences right. He just kept muttering.’ Although she knew her boyfriend was seriously injured, Emma never expected him to die as she accompanied him in the ambulance to hospital in Drogheda.
‘I thought he was going to be all right. I thought he was just going to have broken arms, broken legs. I knew looking at him that his two legs were broken and his two arms were broken. He was just battered.
‘He had bruises all over his face and his head and there was blood coming out of his arms and legs.’ In the ambulance Paul wanted to speak but was unable.
‘He kept trying to say something but the ambulance man couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. Soon all he could say was his name.
‘All he could say when the ambulance man asked him anything was Paul Quinn. No matter what he asked him he could just say Paul Quinn. All he kept saying was Paul Quinn.’ Those words that will haunt her for the rest of her life but they also give her strength to stand up and speak for her friend.
In the hospital, it was only a matter of minutes before Paul passed away. ‘We were all taken into a room and the doctor came in and started hugging everybody – then we knew.’ Like the Quinn family, Emma never thought she would become the focus of any media attention nor did she want it.
But now the death of Paul Quinn has featured in newspapers and broadcasts across the world as the potential political implications of the murder become clear.
THE matter has also been raised in Stormont, Dáil Eireann, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. This week UUP peer Lord Laird went as far as using parliamentary privilege to name those he understood were responsible.
His intervention was partly flawed and did not name the IRA south Armagh OC who is considered to have been the main figure behind the Quinn murder following a row between his son and Paul.
Instead, he inaccurately pinned most of the blame on another Cullyhanna IRA associate – Vincent Treanor – whose name is now plastered on the village walls before the letters RIP.
Mr Treanor has since issued a statement denying any involvement in the death of Paul Quinn and is understood to be under police protection.
He is thought to be a likely scapegoat for the IRA as more senior figures in the provisional movement attempt to sidestep responsibility.
The others named by Lord Laird have said nothing publicly. Despite the fact that he has been accused of sanctioning murder, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy – currently facing tax charges – has not sought to go public to counter Lord Laird’s claim that he was among those consulted before permission for the attack was granted.
Similarly, Seán Gerard Hughes – also implicated by Lord Laird – has not moved to protest his innocence. Hughes, known as the Surgeon, is alleged to have been the IRA Army Council’s most hard-line member and has been linked to the infamous 1996 Canary Wharf bombing, the murder of 12 soldiers at Warrenpoint and the killing of Justice Gibson and his wife.
The Surgeon’s involvement in these atrocities was alleged under parliamentary privilege in 2002 by Belfast East MP Peter Robinson, who said: ‘If a dove was anywhere near Seán Gerard Hughes, he would kill it, but not until he had tortured it – that is what he has done to many of the victims of his organisation, and he was directly linked to those murders.’ Others named by Lord Laird include IRA bomber James McArdle and Michael Carragher, a member of the IRA south Armagh sniper team which killed 12 members of the security forces.
The sniper unit murdered the last soldier to be killed in the Troubles and enjoyed hero status with signs warning of a ‘sniper at work’.
No one has been arrested or charged in connection with Paul Quinn’s murder. Time and time again in the North, those who have lost loved ones have shown strength they never would have otherwise dreamed of in order to seek justice. And so it is that Emma Murphy and the Quinn family are determined to stand up to the IRA thugs.
With Paul’s gold necklace wrapped three times around her wrist, Emma, an ordinary girl without a care in the world three weeks ago, is openly challenging the IRA.
‘If you were to be afraid of somebody, it would be somebody who would come up to you and not be afraid of showing who they are. But going up and hitting someone with a mask on and with steel bars just goes to show that they are nothing but cowards,’ she said.
SHE has a message for Gerry Adams, who denied republican involvement in the killing, blaming fuel smugglers. ‘I’d ask him how does he know it’s nothing to do with the IRA and it’s only smuggling criminals? How does he know? That’s just his own cover-up story just to keep the peace process going. The Provos did it because someone went crying to them over a f***ing thump.’ The Quinns, too, are breaking their silence to hit out at IRA leaders – who live within miles of their home.
Paul’s tearful mother, Briege, said: ‘I want to say to them if they have a conscience at all, go straight to gardaí and give yourselves up. We don’t want any retaliation in any other way, just give yourselves up.’ His father, Stephen, added: ‘I don’t know about the sanctioning but it has to be IRA or ex-IRA.’ ‘It had to be well planned and organised. No one else would be fit to do that around here, only them. I know well it was them.’ However, Paul’s death need not necessarily be entirely in vain. Some even believe it might provide the final push needed to tip a community traditionally loyal to the IRA against those clinging to the violent methods of the redundant movement. The Quinn support group will hold its first public meeting next week and has already held private meetings with other silent victims of IRA beatings and intimidation.
Police are reporting unprecedented assistance from locals – they would have been shunned, if not shot at, not so long ago. But there have been no arrests and no one has been taken in for questioning.
Such are the nuances of Northern politics that there is a genuine fear that the authorities will fudge the circumstances of Paul Quinn’s death to safeguard the continuation of power sharing.
‘I have a fear that it is all going to be brushed under the carpet,’ Emma said. ‘I just hope that justice is done for him.’
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN IRELAND ON SUNDAY (NOW THE IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY) ON 18/11/2007. Author, Michael O’Farrell, Investigative Correspondent.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
This story was first published on 14/01/2007
By: MICHAEL O’ FARRELL
Investigative Correspondent
A FORMAL inquiry into a potentially serious conflict of interest in his department has been ordered by Arts Minister John O’Donoghue in response to issues raised by the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Mr O’Donoghue ordered the probe after this newspaper revealed that the department’s most senior arts official is romantically involved with a former Government consultant.
As assistant secretary general of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, Niall ” Donnchú is the country’s top arts administrator, answerable only to secretary general Philip Furlong and to Mr O’Donoghue himself.
He was appointed to the post in the summer of 20005.
After public-interest concerns were raised by senior public figures, the MoS has established that Mr ” Donnchú is romantically linked to an American literary consultant named Laura Barnes.
Miss Barnes, 40, from Cleveland, Ohio, was appointed as interim director of Dublin’s James Joyce Centre last June.
A renowned rare-book dealer, she made a fortune from the trade before taking up a string of positions as a literary consultant to the Government, beginning in 2003.
Concerns of a possible conflict of interest first arose on December 12 when Miss Barnes made an early morning phone call to Westmeath Fine Gael TD Paul McGrath.
He claims she threatened him with legal action. The extraordinary call was sparked by a series of five D·il questions tabled by Mr McGrath in which he asked about the National Library’s purchase of a rare Joyce manuscript in June 2005. The controversial deal saw the Government pay E1.17m for the set of documents just months after Miss Barnes bought them from a Paris dealer for E400,000.
However, during the call, Mr McGrath became concerned that Miss Barnes displayed a remarkable in-depth knowledge of questions that had not yet been published in the D·il’s order paper.
He has since written a formal letter of complaint to the Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privilege. He is also in the process of asking the Standards in Public Office Commission and the Government spending watchdog, the comptroller and auditor general (C&AG), to review the matter.
When approached in person by the MoS this week, Mr ” Donnchú did not answer when asked if he had tipped off his partner about the questions.
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ he said. Miss Barnes, who was with Mr ” Donnchú at the time, also declined to answer when asked who had informed her of the questions.
Neither Mr ” Donnchú nor Miss Barnes responded to detailed written questions delivered to them by hand.
Those questions asked Mr ” Donnchú whether he had ever declared his relationship as a possible conflict of interest.
After his appointment to the department in 2005, Mr ” Donnchú served as deputy chair of a State committee charged with organising the Samuel Beckett centenary celebrations between November 2005 and May 2006.
Miss Barnes was also on the committee and was paid E105,674 in fees, staff costs and expenses for co-ordinating the festival.
A month after the committee was discharged, she was appointed interim director of the struggling James Joyce Centre in Dublin’s North Great George’s Street.
In Departmental correspondence between Mr ” Donnchú and other officials, Miss Barnes is the only person mentioned as a candidate for the role of director – by Chris Flynn, of the Department’s cultural institutions special projects unit.
Responding to concerns raised, a spokesman for Mr O’Donoghue said an inquiry had been ordered.
‘The minister has asked the secretary general to formally inquire into the circumstances surrounding the issues raised,’ the spokesman said.
Speaking this weekend, Mr McGrath said his initial concern had always been about value for taxpayers’ money in the purchase of the Joyce manuscript.
‘Based on her response to the parliamentary questions and the most recent revelations, I have decided to refer all of this to the C&AG for his review.
Too close for comfort
Hand in hand, blonde book dealer in Dail questions row and the civil servant who holds the arts purse strings
First published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 14/01/2007
By: MICHAEL O’FARRELL
Investigative Correspondent
HAND IN hand, they amble through the cobblestoned grounds of Trinity College with the easy familiarity of a couple.
Occasionally, he leans down towards her and they kiss romantically.
Walking slowly, arm in arm, they exit the university onto Nassau Street, sometimes pausing briefly to window shop.
The pair are not unlike the many other couples enjoying the last of the festive season with a January stroll through the city after work.
However, their relationship has become the focus of concerns about a possible conflict of interest in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
Some of those concerns are now being raised with the Oireacht as Committee on Procedure and Privilege, the Standards in Public Office Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General.
And, in response to revelations by the Irish Mail On Sunday, Arts Minister John O’Donoghue has ordered an inquiry.
Tall and distinctive- looking, with tightly cropped red hair, Niall O’Donnchu is the department’s Assistant Secretary General, responsible for the arts. He was appointed to the post in summer 2005.
As the country’s most senior arts official, he is answerable only to Secretary General Philip Furlong and Minister O’Donoghue.
Petite and blonde, the 40-year- old American who accompanied him on that post-Christmas city centre stroll is a wealthy rare book dealer and former government consultant.
In the past three years she has earned more than E280,000 in fees, staff costs and expenses for her government consultancy work.
Last June, she was appointed as the interim director of Dublin’s James Joyce Centre in North Great George’s Street.
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Miss Barnes is a Joyce enthusiast and mother of two young boys.
Twice married, first to Michael Gene Barnes and then to Damien Weldon, she has recently used both surnames as well as her birth name, Rosenfeld.
A renowned rare book dealer, she has accumulated Joyce material worth well in excess of half a million dollars.
From a wealthy background, she forged a successful career with some of New York’s best rare book dealers and later founded her own company, Araby Books, before being appointed to a string of consultancy positions by the Irish Government, beginning in 2003.
Newspapers and politicians would have had no interest in the relationship between Mr O’Donnchu and Miss Barnes were it not for a remarkable call she made to the mobile phone of Westmeath TD Paul McGrath early on the morning of Tuesday, December 12th.
When the call came, at 9.20am, Mr McGrath could not believe what he was hearing.
Astounded, he listened as Miss Barnes threatened him with legal action.
The reason for her outburst was the fact that Mr McGrath had submitted a series of five written Parliamentary Questions (PQs).
Some of the questions referred to the National Library’s controversial E1.17m purchase of a rare James Joyce manuscript from Miss Barnes in June 2005, months after she paid just E400,000 for the documents.
Another question asked for a breakdown of how much she had earned for government consultancy work carried out during literary festivals in recent years.
In a D·il career spanning almost two decades, Mr McGrath had never before been contacted by anyone referred to in a PQ, let alone been threatened with legal action.
He was dumbfounded. And, as he tried to come to terms with what he was hearing, he realised that the questions he had asked had not yet been formally published in the D·il’s order paper.
In addition one question, about the procedure for the appointment of Miss Barnes as interim director of the Joyce Centre, had been ruled out of order and never appeared on the order paper at all.
Miss Barnes had to have internal departmental information. Someone had to have told her about the questions and their content before they were officially published.
Could that person have been Mr O’Donnchu? If so, he isn’t saying. Neither is she.
In her only public comment on the issue, Miss Barnes has told the Irish Times that she had been contacted by someone in the department to confirm details for answers being prepared. She has never specified who.
According to Miss Barnes, she c o n t a c t e d Mr McGrath because she was upset that somebody had been asking personal questions about her.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done – but I figured I should stand up for myself,’
she said.
Miss Barnes also said she had been contacted by the department to confirm details in the responses officials were preparing f o r Mr McGrath. ‘ He wanted to know everything about me, short of what I had for breakfast.
‘If you want to answer any question entirely truthfully, accurately and completely, you make sure your facts are right,’ she said.
Earlier this week, through solicitors, Miss Barnes denied threatening Mr McGrath.
However, Mr McGrath told the MoS that it was unprecedented in his experience for a third party to be given such detailed knowledge of PQs, especially since none of them seemed to require information that was not already available in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the National Library.
He has since officially complained in a strongly-worded letter to Rory O’Hanlon, the D·il’s Ceann Comhairle and chairman of the powerful Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privilege.
‘I was totally shocked by the receipt of this phone call,’ he wrote. ‘I believe it was an attempt to intimidate me.
‘In my 17 years in the D·il, I have asked thousands of questions, many about third parties, and this is the first occasion I have been contacted by a third party like this,’ the letter of complaint reads.
Mr McGrath is also asking the Government’s spending watchdog, Comptroller and Auditor John Purcell, and the Standards in Public Office Commission to investigate.
When approached in person by the MoS, Miss Barnes did not respond when asked who had told her about the PQs.
Accompanying her, Mr O’Donnchu a l s o did not respond when asked whether he had informed Miss Barnes of the PQs.
Written questions delivered by hand to Mr O’Donnchu and Miss Barnes eight days ago also failed to elicit any response.
However, reacting to the issues raised in today’s MoS, Minister O’Donoghue has already asked his department’s secretary general to inquire into the possibility of a conflict of interest.
‘The minister has asked the secretary general to formally inquire into the circumstances surrounding the issues raised,’ a spokesman said.
A successful career civil servant, Mr O’Donnchu has been in contact with Miss Barnes professionally since his appointment as assistant secretary general.
However, the Government’s controversial e1.17m acquisition of Joyce material from Miss Barnes in June 2005 predates his time in the department.
So, too, does the department’s decision to appoint Miss Barnes as co-ordinator of the ReJoyce Festival in 2003, a position for which she was paid E175,621 in ‘fees and expenses to cover staffing and employee costs.’
From November 2005 until May 2006, Miss Barnes was appointed to a State committee charged with organising the Samuel Beckett centenary festival.
As programme manager for the festival she would have been answerable in part to the deputy chairman of that committee, Mr O’Donnchu.
For her role in co-ordinating the festival, Miss Barnes was paid e105,674 in fees, staff costs and expenses.
Just a month after the Beckett Committee concluded its work, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern reopened the struggling James Joyce Centre with a Government commitment of E250,000 and Miss Barnes was installed as interim director.
In debt and facing recommendations that it be relocated to the Dublin Writers Museum in Parnell Square, the James Joyce Centre was only saved after Mr Ahern intervened.
Making it clear that he did not favour the closure of the facility in his constituency, Mr Ahern’s aides asked the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism to come up with a solution.
One of those to come up with the required solution would be Mr O’Donnchu. And the interim director subsequently hired to see the centre through its crisis was Miss Barnes.
Mr O’Donnchu declined to respond to questions about any role he may have played in the decision to appoint Miss Barnes.
However, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that he was deeply involved with the reopening of the Joyce Centre.
Indeed, in a series of internal memos between Mr O’Donnchu and other departmental officials, Miss Barnes was the only name mentioned as a possible candidate for the role of director.
In a departmental memo dated September 24, 2005, Mr Donnchu urged that ‘an agreed professional manager be installed’ in the James Joyce Centre for an 18-month period.
It is impossible to establish where the suggestion came from but, just three days later, the candidate had been found.
Another memo, from Chris Flynn, the principal of the department’s Cultural Institutions Special Projects Unit, named Miss Barnes as an ideal candidate.
‘For this role as interim director, the individual required should be a Joyce specialist with the skills of good organisation and persuasion, a person who would be seen as a neutral with no axe to grind.
Someone like Laura Barnes would be ideal.’ The memo goes on to say that it would be possible for the department to directly employ the interim director if necessary.
On September 30, Mr Donnchu wrote to Minister O’Donoghue saying that the funding boost and an 18-month period of grace would give the Joyce centre ‘a fighting chance – under a new board, new management, and a new business plan – to prove that it can survive at the present location.’ The matter was later put before the Taoiseach, on October 5, at a Programme for Government review meeting, and the fate of the Joyce Centre was assured.
The next meeting involving the Joyce Centre and its director will soon set in motion another set of departmental memos.
The names Niall O’Donnchu and Laura Barnes will once more be prominent.
Only, this time, it will be for very different reasons.
ADDITIONAL STORIES RELATED TO THIS TOPIC CAN BE DOWNLOADED BY CLICKING THE LINKS BELOW:
Laura Barnes and the Joyce Papers 1
Laura Barnes and the Joyce Papers 2
Laura Barnes and the Joyce Papers 3
Laura Barnes and the Joyce Papers 4
