Seán Quinn Breaks His Silence: The €488 Million Nobody Agreed To | The Quinn Files EP1

What if the collapse of the Quinn Group didn't begin with business failure? But with a banking scheme, regulators had already warned was illegal. The central bank knew, the regulator knew, and the department of finance knew. So why was it allowed to continue? Then came 488.5 million. A debt Sean Quinn said his family never agreed to. For 18 years, the answers have been buried in court judgments, government records, and private evidence. Now we're putting the pieces together. Did Sean Quinn bring it all crash and down? Or was he the victim of one of the biggest cover-ups in Irish history? Hear it from Sean himself and make up your own mind. So I'm delighted to be here with Sean Quinn for the first episode of The Quinn Files. Thanks for joining me today, Sean. Yeah, very welcome. I'm delighted to be here. So Sean, we're now in the back end, August 2006. Why do you feel now is a good time to talk about what happened back from 2008 onwards? Why now? Why not in 10 years' time or 10 years ago? Well, I suppose 10 years' time probably won't be around. I'll be here in the next few weeks, so I think. Well, it's for a number of reasons. As opposed to for sure is for my own family, my kids and grandkids and those that follow me. And as opposed to the local community and the community throughout Ireland. There's not one country in Ireland that hasn't written to me, talked to me, met me, and. There'll be a lot of people supportive. We know there's a lot of people. Auntie Sean Quinn, and we can accept that. That's democracy, so we have no big issue with that. But the narrative has been told for the last. it is 19 years. It was 19 years last May, if we started losing money and shares. And the narrative has been told is that it was all Sean Quinn's fault, it was all Sean Quinn's fault. And I'd put my hands up and say, "Sure, I was the man that pushed to buy Anglo-share, and I'm the man who's wrong." So I have no problem with that. I don't have a major problem either with those who made decisions at the time to support the share price. Because they have felt at the time that it was the right thing to do. It was a tournament out, it was illegal. And the cover-up I put it into. As working capital into the Quinn Group compounded the early gallery, we know all of that. But at the end of the day, the feeling was that this was the right thing to do, and that's it. Now, what I'm here today, therefore, is to talk about the cover-up. Not the initial name, because at the end of the day everybody in life makes mistakes. But I think it's twice, three, four times a bigger crime to cover up a mistake than to make it. And I feel that the government gets away with more than many things to do. And I don't need to say anything bigger than this. And people don't understand it. And if I just give you a wee bit of a brief of what I think went wrong here and what the whole thing started was. When the illegal share support scheme started, it was started. And there was no ill intent by those who, people who are involved in it. It might have been illegal, but there was no ill intent. But then, out of a sudden, it became what there was ill intent. And what happened in the twerking to July 2008? I think the lake, if it never happened on this island before. And I honestly believe that. And I don't think people have fully got their head around it. So just to explain what they had done to me and my wife and my family. On the twerking of July 2008, it's all unrecorded. So the government insisted on putting 488.5 million into the names of my five children and my wife. You know, I honestly believe that's criminality at a level that was never seen before in Ireland. That I objected to it, but the still insisted on doing it and done it. And to put 388 million into my five kids names, without talking to them, meeting them, discussing that you were nothing. But what still was to put 100 million into my wife's name, Patricia. And she wasn't a shareholder, a director or anything in the Quinn group from 2002. For six years, she was never involved. She never, ever, ever owned one CFD. So I think that I know you straight away after that happened. That this was major and that they were going to have a serious, serious problem. How in the name of God could they do that? Put that amount of money into a family's name, particularly Patricia's 100 million. She never, the same as picking somebody off the street. I'm saying we put 100 million into your name through a Cyprus company. So I think when they had that done and had time to think around it for a while, they said to themselves, "Look, this is major. We're going to finish up with people bankrupt, people dismissed, people doing prison sentences." I think to give some context. Let's go back to not the very start. You were born and murdered in Doryland County, for a man. You came from very humble background. If we may be fast-forward to 1973, was that when you started your first company? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. We started off in 1973, but a few hundred pounds. We had a bit of gravel in my father's farm, which I inherited, and I started off buying a washing plant from Finley's and Valley Gauley, and started washing gravel. Then I moved in the blocks and ready-mix in the late '70s, and then the early '80s priestess concrete and roofed tails and stuff like that. Then the early '80s cement factory and started buying pubes and doobler and various things. We started doing lots of things, and thankfully it worked out. We had a tremendous workforce. The work we applied to, and at the time we started, it was a difficult enough time because there was a lot of trouble in the border area. I suppose me starting off with green lorries and bogged in the middle of the GE and stuff like that. It wasn't an easy time to start because there were a lot of mortars happening in the '72s, '73, '70s, '70s. For around that period, we got away with it, and we implied Protestants and Catholics, and we were never, we got a few threats, alright, then. But nothing major, we all felt that we were on a good company, and we didn't discriminate against anybody. But it was a dangerous time. You briefly went through the build of the business there from the '70s forward, but could you talk a little bit about that? When I went to research you and how your business has grew, because the numbers you were hitting, it was pretty amazing, and then when the Quinn insurance, when it started, I suppose just to explain to people at home the actual size of the companies, the profits was making the amount of employees. Well, I suppose it was up to somebody else to say that, because those figures are on record, so I don't want to start blowing, but we had a lot of staff, thousands of staff, and I suppose the early years, it was 98% male, and then in the 2000s, with hotels and pubs and insurance company, we were 50, 50 male and a female, so that pleased me as well, particularly with having four daughters. So it was good. We made a lot of profits, I suppose. It's been said a good few times that we double our profits every three years, and of course I don't think there's anybody dissenting that argument. That's the fact of life. But I suppose the Quinn group went from 0 over 8,000 pounds in year one to over 200 million in 2006, '78, and Quinn insurance, so in other words, 33, 34 years, the Quinn group went from 0 to over 200 million, but Quinn Direct went in 11 years from 0 to over 200 million, and in 2006, '78, Quinn insurance made more profit in the Quinn group, even though it was only a tour of its life, so it was a phenomenal success, so it brought us into a whole different level. But we had a great team, very enthusiastic, great support, and from the whole community. I mean, I'd have bought a laden from 90 farmers right now. the area to expand the whole business. And I don't take the credit for it. I think it's team we built on the team. I was I was captain of the team but it was a great team. I actually like to take this moment to in your book you talk about David Mackey and I think at one point you said he was the individually the best employee that you ever had. So I think I think we should mention him because he came on board in the late 80s and stayed with you for 10 years and you very much commend him for staring the ship in a way and keeping everything. Well you see as well known I started I finished school at 15 and I wasn't big into detail. I would begin to vision and know on what might work and what might not work but I wouldn't know it would be best to implement it and of course I was never never any good administration I never wanted to be involved in administration. He was county manager in Calvin when I asked him first where he considered coming to work for it. He said no but after two or three meetings I persuaded him maybe the right thing to do and he joined us in 1989 and sure he took away more than 50% of the work for me because he ran the whole show I was on the factories on the business but as regards the administration and planning and all that needed to be done he administered everything he had tremendous contacts and that was one of the big regrets I had was I should never have allowed David to leave because after he left the thing took a little bit of a turn and maybe the administration took a step backwards but he was a brilliant man and I've said that he was the best man. Well two things I said he was the best man we ever had but I also believe he was the only workaholic that I ever met. I'm sure I met hundreds of them but I didn't know the whole workaholic but I didn't know that David was a workaholic and certainly our company owes him a great debt of gratitude and you know when I attended his funeral three or four years ago it was very sad because even after he died sorry after he left the company and we could in the throat he very generously came back and tried to make contact with different politicians and the financial regulator and the department of finance he tried his best to bring some reason and get the businesses back for us but unfortunately whatever whatever power he had he didn't have enough power for that the game was set and that was it you know. And as it was a bit of a big question to ask this early on but do you think what ended up happening in 2008 onwards would have happened if you had David Markey still on? 99.99% David would never let that happen no no no no no can I be 100% sure of anything no I can't be 100% sure of leaving here today alive but no David would never heed of every every A and T was crossed and the law was kept within everything he'd done so there's nowhere that David would have allowed what happened to happen. And then when David stepped down we had a couple of new faces to the team who was it that was brought in to replace David. Liam was there around the time that David started I'm not sure whether he was there before David or after it but he came in around that time and he was a great assistant to David Markey and he helped David a lot and he used to prepare lots of figures and David had great belief in him which I had as well and then in 2002 we hired another local man Darra Railey who became finance director. So I suppose jump and jump and forward a bit and before we get into Anglo and the CFDs that Quinn Group and Quinn Insurance had become so profitable that in your book you said that you sort of changed strategies a little bit were like for example you sold the smaller pubs in Dublin and bought a bigger hotel in the UK and you can't have this idea to sell smaller assets and maybe acquire bigger ones and it was in a way to make things more manageable. Yeah well I suppose we had a look to the future and there was all the options which we considered many options should the company go public or part of the public company go public. So really I think what we concluded maybe too late was that look at Quinn Insurance is the biggie here in the space of 11 years it became more than 50% of the profits so we said we'll stick to that we'll sell a lot of the small manufacturing assets and we'll sell a lot of the small pubs which we did. What I'd be right and saying is part of this strategy to down size in ways for bigger companies was to start investing in shares and stocks and not really that was another of the mistakes I made was as well that we we took out 800 million pounds of dividends from Quinn Insurance between 2002 2006. What half of it back into the company and bought family assets with the other half? I think that was a mistake we should have left all the money in Quinn Insurance and had it for the highest credit rating we could probably have. For example get a double air rating, triple air rating, get the best possible rating which would mean you couldn't cure anybody in any country in any anywhere in the world. So I think that was a mistake we made that we should have rather than taking dividends in Quinn Insurance we should have made it the most powerful insurance company. One of the most powerful in Europe which it would be now. Yeah whose idea was it then to take the 800 out in dividends? It was my idea, about idea. About idea, about an idea I regret it. A respective of the fact that the business was taken from us which you shouldn't have been irrespective of that. I should never have taken out the 800 million. I should have worked with the credit rating agencies and said what do we need to do to make sure that we have the best credit rating of any insurance company or among the best in Europe. So in other words how much should be in cash, how much should be in property, how much should be here there and younger. What would you feel we need to do to get to a triple air rating for example? And that's what the question I should have been asked asking rather than taking money out and investing it in Russia, Ukraine or Prague or whatever it might be. That was a mistake on my part. So then at what point did you find out about or get involved with Anglou? Well again, again I have to take the blame for that because I was a big supporter of Anglou. I thought Anglou was a terrific investment and I thought of the terrific bank. I haven't changed my mind on that. I still believe there were a great bank, a great institution. You would ask the question, why did I think that? Well the reason I thought that was there were a bit like the Quim group themselves. In other words, the profit margins, our profit margins was the highest in the business and any of the business we were in. Whether it was glass, whether it was cement, whether it was insured. Our profit margins was always higher than our competitors. I found the same thing when Anglou, the dear profit margins were always higher than the AAB or the Bank of Ireland. So we had a lot in common. So it was supposed to be the same as maybe Ryanair and Arlingus. Ryanair always produces higher profit margins than them. So it was for that reason that I was so fond of Anglou and it was me and me alone. I was the strongest advocate of Anglou, of anybody in the company. I suppose we shouldn't need to explain what a CFD is. It's a contract for difference. That's right. This is what CFD stands for. But you'd be better to explain exactly what it is. Yeah, it's the same as buying a house, if you buy a house and you pay a 20-25% deposit and you borrow the rest from the bank. So in our case, I think on average we worked it out one time. I think our average payment on the CFDs was 22%. There were as low as 15 and as high as 20, that we paid. So 22 an average over what we, over the two years or so that we were involved in the CFD. So we bought them and then the crash came in America, the housing crash in America happened. And Anglou, we were stuck into the middle of a lot of shares in Anglou, a lot of CFDs in Anglou. And by May 2007, the share price started to fall. And between May 2007 and September 2007, all the cash we had, all the cash was available to us, which $660 million. And we put all of that into the Anglou share. And Anglou, so the way this works is that say you buy at a 22%, you still. Oh, you buy it from a pound and you pay a 22%. Yes, so you only have to pay a 22% but you still own the whole pound. You have access to, you have access to, you have a contract to buy it. A contract, yes. If you're able, yeah. But if the share goes down, you have to meet the lower price, the loss. Yes. And of course, we met the loss from May 2007 until September 2007. And when 2007 came, we had no further funds. So we met Anglo, and they are buying hotels in Navan. And we told them. And I told them we had 25, we had CFDs and 25% of the bank. And they were shocked that it was more like half of that. And you had a big share holding on, right? But it didn't realize it was that size. And the weren't happy with it. And I knew the weren't happy with it. And they asked me that when the share price would recover, would I be happy to reduce the CFDs? And I said, no problem, whatever you want. And they went off. We didn't share to each other or that. But they were disappointed. So they went off. And apparently that evening, not just didn't wait that evening, the told all of the board of Anglo, what the position was. And the next day, they told the central bank Department of Finance, the regulator, the attorney general, who everybody needed to be told, the told them the twin share holding. And it was agreed that Anglo would support the share. So when you said to them in Navin, we owned 25%, and you said they're saying surprised, is that not something that they should be aware of? Well, they wouldn't be aware of it. Because the CFD, you see, you buy it through another financial institution. So when fairness to them, they wouldn't have been aware of it, no. I mean, people, the media in Ireland would say it was a big risk business. CFDs were popular and out in the world at that time. I mean, CFDs contracts for difference are very, very popular in instruments in the financial world. But you can buy-- we say we had maybe five or six different finance and institutions that we used to buy these shares through. So actually, when fairness wouldn't know who was who, or what was what, they could argue that maybe we hijacked them in some way that we had a big share holding, and then didn't have the money to complete the deals. The could argue that point that they didn't know-- they didn't know, and fairness didn't know. But the important point here is not what you knew or what they didn't know. The important point here is we told them. On the 11th of September, 2007, we told them exactly what we had, and they told all departments in the government exactly what we had. Anglo-Go to the central bank, the regulator, to inform them, Quinn owns 25% what-- were they asking for advice or-- What I know done then was that the government encouraged or agreed for Anglo-Go to do was in a legal act. And that was to support the Anglo-Share price. What to do in the Quinn family name was wrong, wrong, wrong. Because of Daniel wanted to support the Anglo-Share price. They shouldn't have used the Quinn family as an instrument to do that. And they knew it was wrong. So what do we do now? We know it's wrong, and we know it's a legal. So what do we do? We loan the money to the Quinn group, and they support the share price, which was not only now a legal, but it was also perverted in the course of justice. So I mean, they couldn't make the excuse we didn't know, because they didn't know. And as I said, to put it into the Quinn group. So I suppose just to come back to share support for-- and me and myself, when I started reading this, I was googling and looking up share support. What is this? And I was trying to find a way to simplify this. And I was like, OK, if I own a sweet shop, and I correct me if I'm wrong, people aren't by in my product. Is this the same as that I go around to the people in the village and give them all 100 pound each? lend them, not give them, lend them 100 pound each, and say, come into my sweet shop and buy the sweets. That way, the sweet shop looks like it's Aaron in money, looks like it's busy, and people will be confident. I'm not sure I could use a comparison like that, but what I can say is this. Anglo and the government genuinely felt that this was a temporary thing to happen. Yes, there's always a bump in the road. Exactly. And at the time, Anglo were reporting a forecasting record profits for that year, record high profits in May 2000 and yet. So the government taught this is a temporary thing, and we'd allow it to be done under Quinn's name for a few months, however. So to really try and simplify it for people who are here in this story for the first time, you own these CFDs, you own a lot of these CFDs, 25%. Yes. In Anglo. 2007, Anglo start to get a bit nervous, or things start to rock. They realize you have 25%. They go to the government and different bodies to say there's maybe a problem here that we need to solve. The government, or I'm not sure who it was stepped in, then this maybe where I'm wrong, suggested this share support scheme that was somewhat dodgy territory. Am I right so far, have I? Well, 100% illegal. Yes. So that-- I can't say who proposed it. That's how it made up. Yes. That's beyond me. But what I can say is the government at all levels were aware of it. And when I say all level, I'm not talking with ministers. I'm talking about the Department of Finance to regulate it under Central Bank. They were all aware of it. And the tyranny general's office wasn't formed at the same time, but they were involved in what they call the domestic standing group, who had a meeting, the first meeting where it was discussed a week or two after, early October 2007. This large shareholder, rich individual, had a large shareholder in Anglo. And this was discussed at the domestic standing group meeting in early October 2007. So I suppose this is where I was going, my switch up analogy. I read a lot about this. They propped up the shares. Yes. Can you explain the share support and propping up the shares? Well, when the share-- when the share would drop, it could be-- there was stays that dropped 100 million in one day. Wow. And I'm going to write the check. We'd never see it. Never seen a penny of it, not a penny of it. Who are they writing the check for? They were writing the check for the Quinn group. OK. Who in turn was supporting the share price, putting it into the shares? So it was going back to Anglo. I don't know the exact detail of how this transaction was done. But I do know that we had no involvement and act apart. Propping the shares up or propping up is their loan. It drops by a million just to keep it simple. The shares drop by a million. Anglo writes a check for a million pounds to Quinn group. Yeah. Quinn then pots a million pounds straight back into-- The share price. The share price. Yeah. So one of the four or five banks that held these shares on our behalf-- Yes. --it was them that those checks would have to go to. So another world would say there was five holders of these shares on our behalf. Those five checks were probably-- I don't know what we had was done. But I can only imagine that it would be damn enough to get the money. And who OK'd all this? Is this something that-- Well, Darro Rayley. Darro Rayley, he admitted in Swedish and Irish courts. It was him transacted. So again, that's not an dispute. He himself gave evidence in court that was him transacted all these deals. That he would ring Anglo at maybe 9, 10 o'clock in the morning and tell him what the shortage was. And they would just pay the money. And who got carried from Anglo side? Did Anglo need to get permission off anyone hired? How did I presume-- in other words, if the government had told them, you can support the share price. They weren't telling them on a daily basis. But then when the real trouble started was, when the founder does a big hole here, he went to Liam McCaffrey, who had bought shares in his own name, and we didn't know anything about this. None of the family knew anything about it. The Liam was in his own private capacity. The family made, I don't know the amount, but the family. There was millions, anyway, that he had bought in his own private capacity. And he gave Anglo the share pledges of the Quinn group. He don't know what they're talking to the shareholders. He don't know what they're talking to the board. He don't know what they're talking to anybody. So did he have authority to do something like that? He didn't? No. No more than that. I know didn't have authority to take it. They shouldn't have taken the share pledges when the knew that it wasn't common, and the board hadn't agreed it. Or the shareholders hadn't agreed it. Nobody had agreed it. So how could Anglo rightfully take it? He wrote two Anglo on the 18th of March, saying, given them the share pledges of the company. I don't know whether he had stolen a half million before that, or after it. But the big one here is there's no point in blame Liam McCaffrey for everything. Why would Anglo Irish Bank tick half a million from Liam McAfry? So, in other words, when Liam was in big trouble with his own shares, and they were going to have to bankrupt them or would do whatever needed to be done, he took half a million from a Quinn company and give it to England. Did Anglo know that it was stolen or was it maybe loaned? Now, that's the grey area, I can't say that, all I can do is say that it was done without the permission or agreement or the knowledge of the shareholders or the board. Okay, so he was obviously able to do that though he had. What he was chief executive, and I didn't need to get you to sign off on it. Oh, no, no, I didn't sign any checks, I wasn't involved in that. Okay. Whatever was doing anyway, we can blame him as much as we want and we can blame Dara as much you want. But the big one here is, why would Anglo tick that money and tick share support knowing or did the know or did the government know? The government would have to agree and support the share price. But the government, the regulator know, the department of finance know who knew that this thing was done. But whatever about that, and that was outrageous, but something more outrageous happened four months later. That was the 18th of March that he gave away the share of that years. On the target of July, three months later, four months later, Anglo loaned a put in the name of the Quinn family, 488.5 million. To go long on the shares, in other words, to get rid of the CFDs. And if you remember, there was a maple 10, so they give 10% going long to the maple 10, 10 big customers of theirs, 1% each, 15% to the family. So I objected and said, no, that's not happening. We don't want that money loan, that's, we don't want that. And they insisted, and they ever threw Macculey left the meeting, walked out of the meeting when I objected over the phone, himself and William McAteer and another director, forget his name now, was on their, on their side of the phone and myself and Liam and Dara was on our side. And I said, no, that can't happen, and drum walked out. And he said that the government had agreed it. And not only had agreed it, they had directed the Irish talk exchange to allow this deal to go through. And that was outrageous. How do you not know as the owner of the company that, that something like this, like half a million pound, it's a lot. And then as well that he can sign over the, the pledge, the power of attorney for the shares. It sounds like a lot happened without you knowing. Did I know that Anglo Irish bank was supporting the shares? Yes, I did. Oh, you did know that that was happening. I did know, I did know that was happening. Okay. Did I know what was illegal? How would I know what was illegal? So surely the Irish government wasn't going to be doing anything illegal. So if the Irish government agreed to settle the, to support the share price, who was Sean Quinn finishing school at 15 to object to that happening. Did you ever ask any, like did you ever get your own independent advice? No, no, no, no, it never, it never came up. You just talk about that because the Irish government are doing it, it must be legal and above board. But just, I suppose you're asking a very relevant question, why did Sean Quinn not know more and give such authority to Liam McHaffrey and Darryl Riley? The dare could be involved in this 2.34 billion loans, 488.5 million in July 2008. How come Sean you didn't know more? I can, I can easily understand why that question could be asked, but I'll repeat it. I did know the bank that was supporting the share price. I did know that the Irish government had allowed them to. I felt that there was no one in my business, that was fine if that's what they wanted to do. And by the way, I was glad. I was glad there was support against it, so I'm not saying that was, sorry, I was glad. But when I came to the 488.5 million, I'm selling 15% of the shares, I was saying hold on a minute now. That's not on, that cannot happen because why didn't you make a sell these shares? Back in September 2007, a year ago, when we told you what we had, why didn't you go and stick a billion or two into them? And now say we want to sell them. So I was all against them and sold. I had no problem. If anyone said to me in September 2007, Sean, we are not supporting the shares. There was no total choice, they supported them, or I sold them, one or the other. So how to come that I gave that authority, or how to come that Liam McHafry felt he had that authority? Well, it's just the way it was that I trust people too much, that I feel that after the destructures that David Mackey put in between 1989 and 1989, that everything would run smoothly after, I did, genuinely never felt that Liam McHafry was going to go in and buy them self into share, I mean, what makes it even worse, that he encouraged Sean or I Sean to sell somebody to share some of his CFDs, and him owning a pile of CFDs himself, I mean, it begues belief, but certainly I give far too much authority, too much trust, too much trust to her, overall, if I was living my life again, would I do the same thing, probably too less or extent, but I always felt, and I always feel that I built my business on trust and my staff, because by me trusting them, they trusted me, and we worked together and we made it through many success of it, did that trust extend beyond me to my kids? Yes, it did, so the day I feel that because their father was doing it, that they had to do it, they did, so look, the trust was over extended, there's no question about that, that I trusted people, too much, but above all the people, I could understand Anglo or a bank, but in pressure on Sean Quinn or the Quinn family, but for the life of me, I couldn't understand why the Irish government, because you must remember the Irish government appeared by the citizens of Ireland to do a job, and I paid more than my share, but every working person in Ireland pays those buys salary, and yet those buys went along and took over my businesses, on the back of illegality, which I found extraordinary, to take over a company from me, on the back of their illegality, because there was no financial basis for it, we didn't need money, we had plenty of money, we had agreed to pay all the money back, so why in the name of God would they have done it? So what does that look like? 488 million is put into the names of the Quinn family. On top of 1.8 or 1.9 from the previous, prior to that, there's even more, it's up to 2.34 now. Okay, 2.34 billion. Loaned into the shares, 100% illegality, against your will, against the family's will, but obviously someone had to sign it off, was that done by one of your staff? Patricia never signed anything, she didn't know anything about it, the kids would have always signed whatever Liam and Darum asked them to sign, and the first time that we stopped signing what Liam and Darum asked us to sign, was when one of the big companies, and they would represent it, we don't know, once they came along and looked for us to accept retrospective legal advice, which we had never got legal advice. What's a retrospective legal advice, explain what that is? Well, that means, at the moment about matters which had happened, years, weeks and months earlier. Okay, so they wanted you to sign something to say, I got advice three weeks ago from. In this case, maybe six, nine months ago, we had to say that, yeah, unbelievable. And had you got the advice, no, but they wanted you to sign something to say? We did receive retrospective legal advice. How can a legal firm, I mean, it's one of the things that I would love somebody to look at. How could any legal firm ask anybody to sign retrospective legal advice? advice. I mean, it's very simple. Even finish school at 15. It's very simple. How can you advise something retrospectively? You just can't. So, coming back to July 20, 488 million is put into your family's name. First of all, where did they come up with 488 million word that no more come from? No, they were putting 15% of the CFDs into our name long term, because we own them. Okay, yeah, yeah. So, the difference, that's the amount of money it just happened to take. 488.5. And how can you do that? If Sean Quinn sits on the phone, me, and says, "That cannot happen." Drum walked out in the meeting. Liam McAfrey, Darrell Reilly, and them, agreed it. It was done. How do you not have put your foot down? Well, how do you put your foot down? If they say, "What you did?" And it's not denied, and it's in plenty of books, so there'll be no challenge on that fact. If you were told that the Irish government have agreed it, and they have directed the Irish stock exchange to allow it to happen, what power did I have over the Irish government? Could you go outside? Could you have got in Junction? Yeah, or got someone from outside? Probably. 18 years on, are you still liable for that money? Well, I mean, this is the laughable point about the whole thing. I don't know. I don't know what we're, take patricious, 100,500,000, so 100.05. Their bankrupt are the judgment against her. 10 and a half years later, for 121,000,000. So they had added 20.5 million of interest to the money. But they had no penalty then, and the interest rate that way would be less than 2%. So what we're thinking, or who is responsible, is the Department of Finance? Who decides what money? Does the kids, 388 million, the old, is their interest accrued to that for the past 16 years? We don't know. We don't know. Where did the come up with this money from? And what's the family owe? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. But the answer anyway is that they're still holding the family to ransom. That the bankrupt patricia, but they're holding the family to ransom for the other 388 million. That if you are a bad boy, or if you start earning or do earning, we don't like, we can bankrupt anytime of what. They're still holding that over and over and over. Just to keep to the time frame, we're now 2008 coming into 2009. Angle was then, Angle had basically been nationalized as in the the government moved in and said, "Lad, these are doing a terrible job. Get out. We're going to take over." At that point, did you feel like you found a sense of relief? Did you think, "Oh, well, great. The government's coming in. They're going to help." Or, "What was your feeling?" Well, that's exactly what I felt. I felt that a relationship had soured a bit and the Angle thing had finished up pretty badly. However, Sean, if it's patricia, if it's rum and patneery from the regulator's office, we were patched up at the end of 2008 and I agreed to pay all the money back. But then, in 2009, the bank was nationalized. Yes. And I said to myself, "Well, look, surely the government is not going to do us any damage." Yes. And how wrong I was.