An Irish company owned by a trust set up for the grandchildren of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn was paid €501,225 last year by a Ukrainian company which is part of the international property group the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation wants to seize.
The money was paid into an AIB account in Blanchardstown, Dublin (above). The payments were made on foot of a contract agreed prior to the High Court ordering the Quinn family to stop asset-stripping the property group.
A second Irish company, owned by the wider Quinn family, was also paid substantial amounts in 2011.
The previously unreported payments are set out in an affidavit of Seán Quinn Junior, filed by him to the High Court in July when he was sent to jail for contempt.
In the document, Mr Quinn sets out certain matters concerning Cranre Property Services Ltd, with an address in Blanchardstown, Dublin.
The company was incorporated in April last year. Mr Quinn’s brothers-in-law, Niall McPartland and Stephen Kelly, are its directors, and the company’s shares are held by a Swedish entity, Irish Trust AB.
Mr Quinn jnr said in his affidavit to Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne that the company was ultimately owned by the Cranaghan Foundation, a foundation set up for the benefit of his parents’ grandchildren.
He said that in April 2011, the company took over a services contract with Univermag, a company operating a shopping mall in Kiev. The contract was agreed at a time when IBRC was seizing the Quinn Group from the family.
Mr Quinn Junior said he was advised by Mr Kelly that the terms of the contract were agreed between Mr Kelly and Larissa Yanez Puga, who ran Univermag for the family and whom the bank has been trying to depose.
Cranre received a €269,880 signing-on fee on July 8th, 2011, two payments of €77,103 each on September 2nd, 2011, and a further payment of €77,103 on September 3rd, arising from invoices for the months of June, July and August 2011.
Mr Kelly agreed a contract between Cranre and Letynaya in August 2011, according to Mr Quinn. As part of this contract, Letynaya was to be paid €320,000 by Cranre, which it was in November 2011.
Since then, he said, the family has ended its role with Univermag and has sought the return of some of the money paid to Letynaya. “Letynaya refused this request,” Mr Quinn said in his affidavit.
He said the balance of the money that remained with Cranre “was used to pay general office expenses over the course of the last 12 months or so”.
Mr Quinn’s affidavit was filed after he was found to have acted in contempt of an order issued by Mr Justice Frank Clarke on June 21st, 2011, instructing the Quinns to stop their efforts to put the assets of the property group beyond the bank’s reach. Mr Quinn said another Irish firm, Neacad Ltd, also based in Blanchardstown, was incorporated in May 2011 for the benefit of the wider Quinn family. It received €308,371 from Finansstroy, a Russian company associated with the valuable Kutzoff Tower in Moscow.
Neacad’s contract has since been “outsourced” to Dubai-based Al Raea Real Estate, a company located by Senat for Mr Kelly.
Mr Quinn said the Neacad contract was not a mechanism for extracting income from the international property group.
Reilly commits to extend free GP care for Ireland’s long term illnesses people before end of 2012
A long overdue promise to extend free GP care to 60,000 people with long-term illnesses will be fulfilled by the end of the year, according to Health Minister James Reilly.
The delay in extending the free service to those with conditions such as diabetes and epilepsy will substantially reduce the amount of money required to fund the scheme this year.
Dr Reilly dismissed the suggestion that the delays amounted to an accounting exercise at a time when the HSE is facing an end-of-year deficit of up to €500m. The scheme was due to be introduced last March.
“The reason that there was such a delay in that legislation is because of the difficulty and complexity around changing from a simple income threshold arrangement to actually bringing people in under disease entities,” Dr Reilly said.
In other words, there were legal challenges around awarding medical cards on the basis of a long-term illness instead of on the basis of income, as is currently generally the case.
The delay in extending free GP care caused tension between Dr Reilly and former junior health minister Róisín Shortall.
Dr Reilly, who was attending the Irish Hospital Consultants Association AGM at the weekend, said the funding was still available to extend the scheme. “The money is there and it will be brought in before the end of this year.”
Last January Dr Reilly told the Dáil everyone on the long-term illness scheme would have access to free GP care by the summer. He denied at the weekend that difficulties with extending the scheme could have been foreseen.
He said there was a “huge amount of legislation” going through the Dáil, “a lot of it predicated on the troika, which has to take precedence at all times”.
The delay in extending free GP care means much less than the €15m originally earmarked for 2012 will be required this year.
It also means the introduction of free GP care by Mar 2013 to 50,000 patients on the high-dependency drugs scheme is unlikely to happen on schedule. This in turn will scupper the Government’s pledge to introduce free GP care for all by 2015, which was one of the promises contained in the programme for government.
Should Health Minister James Reilly resign?
He’s hitting the headlines again for the wrong reasons… Labour party grass-roots want Reilly gone
In a journal.ie on-line poll up to Monday the 8th October 2012 some 3500 respondents 45% said yes.
Friday last grassroots members of the Labour Party announced that they’re to meet this week to call for the resignation of James Reilly.
In last Sunday’s Business Post it’s reported that the health minister knew that the HSE had chosen a site owned by one of his political supporters in Balbriggan for a primary care centre before he added the town to a list of options for public private partnerships.
The Sunday Independent meanwhile reports that Minister Reilly has claimed that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were aware of plans to place two primary care centres in his own North Dublin constituency.
Catholic Church rallies support for campaign against abortion
The Irish Catholic Church has launched a month-long campaign calling for its members to make their opposition to abortion known to public representatives.
The campaign was launched following the establishment by the Government last year of an expert group to examine the decision of the 2010 European Court of Human Rights in the ABC case, concluding that abortion would be legal where there was a risk to the life of the woman. Bishop of Killala John Fleming said yesterday the way the Government responded “could allow for the introduction of pro-abortion legislation for the first time in Ireland”. The Irish bishops are asking Catholics to make their opposition to abortion known to public representatives so “the safety of all children in the womb will be preserved”.
Famous and beloved black swan found strangled to death in Limerick
Locals in Limerick have been stunned by the horrible death of a famous black swan that attracted tourists to the city from far and wide.
According to The Limerick Leader, the black swan, known as Oz because the black swan is indigenous to Australia, was found along the river bank in Doonass near Castleconnell by a mother and child who reported its death to the LSPCA (Limerick Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). It is believed that the swan was strangled to death.
LSPCA Chairperson Geraldine Nardone told The Limerick Leader: “A rope was around its neck. It was choked to death. Young fellows must have hung him, what was the purpose, what kind of warped minds would do this?
“Swans get very trusting; they nearly come out of the water to you. It would be easy put a rope over its ahead. They did it for their own sick enjoyment.
Oz and another black swan turned up in Limerick out of the blue two years ago and because black swans are so rare in these parts, their presence attracted visitors from all over.
Oz spent most of its time in Castleconnell but had to move to Limerick City for a spell after wildlife photographer Kevin O’Dwyer, who christened the swan, saw some youngsters shooting at it with a pellet gun.
O’Dwyer is hoping to locate the other black swan as soon as possible in order to preserve its safety,
“Where is the other one is the question, where there is one there has to be the other one,” O’Dwyer told The Limerick Leader.
“I’d like it to put in to a wildlife sanctuary. If one is dead they might try and kill the other one,” he added.
One has to wonder what exactly was going through the head of the guilty party/parties involved. Terrible, terrible stuff.
Bus Eireann Makes Changes to Expressway Commercial Services
From October 7, Bus Éireann is making changes to the following Expressway commercial services:
Route 22 Ballina-Dublin Airport: Locations no longer served: Moyvalley, Clonard, Kinnegad, Ballinafid, Elphin and Carracastle.
Customers travelling from Moyvalley, Clonard and Kinnegad to and from Dublin can still use the Route 20 Expressway service. Customers travelling to and from Ballinafid can use the Bus Éireann route 115 service to and from Longford, Mullingar, Kinnegad and Dublin.
Route 23 Sligo-Dublin: After consultation – just one service will now operate daily from Rooskey and Dromod.
Route 30 Sligo-Dublin: Locations no longer served Swanlibar, Ballyconnell and Bawnboy.
Customers travelling to and from Swanlinbar to Enniskillen can use Bus Éireann’s Route 464 service on a Thursday at 11.05 with a return service from Enniskillen to Swanlinbar at 14.50.
Customers travelling to and from Ballyconnell to Cavan can use Bus Éireann’s Route 465 service on a Tuesday at 10.05 with a return service from Cavan to Ballyconnell at 14.40.
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