attack denial

Ex-billionaire businessman Sean Quinn confronted priest over his ‘paymaster’ sermon after vicious attack on Kevin Lunney

• Published: 17:14, 7 Sep 2023
• Updated: 17:15, 7 Sep 2023

SEAN Quinn insists he’s not the “paymaster” who ordered the sickening attack on Kevin Lunney.

The one-time business tycoon has been plagued with allegations that he’s responsible for the sickening attack of Kevin Lunney in 2019.

Quinn, 75, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the horrific abduction and assault of the chief operating officer of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH), and has called for those responsible to be held accountable.

But in his new autobiography – released this week – the Cavan entrepreneur addressed allegations he’s the financial backer behind the spate of attacks against his former business.

Discussing the aftermath of the attack on Lunney, he explained: “Father Oliver O’Reilly, Ballyconnell’s parish priest, invited the television cameras into the Mass, indicating to them the previous day what the sermon was going to be about.

“Part of his sermon was in the print media before he even declared his homily from the pulpit. It was subsequently widely reported that he said a Mafia-style campaign had shrouded the community in fear, and that an unnamed ‘paymaster’ was behind it all.

“Although Fr O’Reilly had not named me, many people, including myself, felt that it was me he was talking about.

“The ‘paymaster’ term soon appeared in the media, and on people’s lips, and it is still being used today.

“In fact, the judge in Kevin Lunney’s criminal trial, when he was imposing sentences, stated that he was leaving the maximum sentence for the paymaster.”

Writing in Sean Quinn: In My Own Words, he reveals: “I called in to see Fr O’Reilly shortly afterwards.

“I told him he was ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’.

“I asked him to clarify whether it was or wasn’t me he was talking about as the ‘paymaster’.”

In the book Quinn describes how he first learned about the Lunney assault following a phone call from Joe Finnegan, a presenter with the radio station Northern Sound.

“I condemned it as a barbaric act,” he insists.

‘SPECULATION’

He also discusses his relationship with career criminal Cyril ‘Dublin Jimmy’ McGuinness, who has been linked to the attack, and argues: “Some speculated that I knew Dublin Jimmy well.

“The truth is that I only knew him by reputation and by sight, having seen him a few times in local pubs.”

Quinn adds: “There seems to be a continued desire to imply that I have been responsible for everything that has gone wrong over the past fifteen years, while in fact at the Central Bank inquiry I was fully cleared of any wrongdoing, and during the trial of Kevin’s abductors, my name was not even mentioned.