‘Paid criminals’ behind attack on Quinns director, says chief executive

Liam McCaffrey was speaking a month after fellow director Kevin Lunney was kidnapped and seriously assaulted by a gang of criminals, leaving him with life changing injuries.

Mr McCaffrey said: “To whoever’s paying them, I would say: ‘This is a crazy, crazy system to be on and it just defies any kind of logic that this would serve anybody’s purpose or do anybody any good’.”

The assault was the latest attack on employees and property of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) going back a number of years, he told the BBC.

The companies making up the group were previously owned by Fermanagh man Sean Quinn, who was once Ireland’s richest man.

When his empire collapsed, outside investors bought its manufacturing companies, which are now run by former associates of Mr Quinn.

He returned as a consultant, but left in 2016 amid tensions with management.

Mr Lunney was drivin from work g to his home in Kinawley, County Fermanagh, when he was abducted by a masked gang. He was dumped across the border almost three hours later with severe injuries to his legs, torso and face.

Mr McCaffrey said the evidence in Mr Lunney’s attack “points to paid criminals from well outside of the area being paid by somebody to come into the area and carry out that attack on Kevin”.

“The purpose of the attack seemed to be to scare him and threaten other executives to resign from the business,” he said.

Mr Lunney is now walking with the aid of crutches, he said, and it appears that the gang attempted to break his arm also.

Mr Lunney’s brother, Tony, who is also a director with the company, had been targeted just last week when bales were slashed on the family farm, he added.

He criticised police efforts in relation to the scores of previous attacks on Quinn property and staff over recent years, saying he believed they were seen as “an acceptable level of violence”.

He is now waiting to see if the identification of those responsible happens.

“If it doesn’t, I think both governments might need to look at an alternative structure for a properly resourced cross-border team, a specialist team to get involved to bring this to an end because it’s gone on for far too long.”

He is concerned about the long-term future of the company if the intimidation does not stop.

“It’s something I’m very concerned about. When we took over the company there were 630-odd jobs there, now there’s 830,” he said.

“But you need to keep reinvesting. It’s very hard to do that against this backdrop, and it’s very hard for us to go to outside financiers and say: ‘Give us your money. It’s safe in this area’.”

Mr Quinn has joined widespread community condemnation of the attacks.

He told BBC News NI: “I have already condemned these attacks in the strongest possible terms. I repeat, I utterly condemn them and am disgusted by them. It’s not possible that we could benefit from these attacks as a family. No-one can benefit from crime.”

A Garda spokesperson said: “All incidents relating to QIH employees and/or premises reported in this jurisdiction are subject to ongoing investigations.

“An Garda Síochána has made a number of arrests and files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, one individual has been subject of a European Arrest Warrant.”

PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne has defended the service’s response to the attacks, saying the kidnapping of Mr Lunney was an escalation of violence that “came out of nowhere”.