‘Fear factor’ returns to Border after attacks on Quinn executives

Along the Fermanagh-Cavan border, the Quinn logo is everywhere. It is there on the distinctive green lorries, on the signs advertising Quinn products and on the businesses themselves, strung out along the Ballyconnell Road, which links the Cavan town of the same name to Derrlyin in Co Fermanagh.

First there is the glassworks, then the quarry, then the cement works; a huge heap of sand destined for use at various Quinn industries reaches up behind the company headquarters.

It was here, just over a month ago, that the staff of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) joined by politicians, community leaders and concerned individuals, gathered for a protest march to show their revulsion at the abduction and brutal attack on one of the company's directors, Kevin Lunney, and to present a petition of support – signed by all staff – to his family.

Yet it was only at the rally, with the support of more than 500 people around them, that many felt able to voice their opposition to the assault on Lunney. Even then, some employees were reluctant to speak out. Some turned away from television cameras, and those who did speak did so only on condition of anonymity.

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“The fear factor is dependent on locality,” one worker says. “Some people live in very close proximity to some of the people who are suspected to be involved.”

“If you’re living in areas that are very close by – Ballyconnell, Derrylin, Kinawley – people who live there would individually be very afraid to be seen to be doing anything, but if you’re further afield – and that might only be 10 miles away – people wouldn’t have a big fear for themselves but they would have a big fear for the directors.”

Fresh threat

This week a fresh threat was made against five of those directors, including Lunney. It was accompanied by a photograph of a man wearing dark glasses and a balaclava and spoke of a “permanent solution” and a “last warning to resign your positions”. A warning was also issued that anyone who removed signs in the area would be “targeted”.

Yet even before the attack on Lunney, there had been a long-running campaign of intimidation against QIH directors – all former executives of businessman Seán Quinn, once reputed to be Ireland's richest man – who took over the running of his industrial businesses after he lost control of them following a disastrous investment in Anglo Irish Bank shares.

Quinn has condemned the intimidation of QIH’s directors and described the attack on Lunney as “despicable and totally barbaric”. He has also said he had “no hand, act or part” in it and that he no longer wants to try and take back control of his former businesses as he did not want to be seen as the “beneficiary . . . of criminal activity”.

Many in this Border area remain fiercely loyal to Quinn and grateful for the jobs he created. “This is a forgotten zone, up here,” the QIH employee explains. “He is the guy who turned this place around and brought it into the modern era.”

Staff sickened

Staff were “sickened, absolutely sickened” by the attack on Lunney, the employee says, yet if some of his colleagues were afraid to speak out, others were unwilling to do so lest it be perceived as criticism of Quinn.

“Some people said they felt it was a complicated scenario. In my view it’s not complicated at all.”

QIH director John McCartin agrees. “For 4½ years we put up with incitement on Facebook, we put up with signage targeting us in our local areas, we put up with public meetings being held where incitement to hatred was the order of the day, we put up with threats being specifically delivered to us.”

He describes “hate speech . . . incitement to violence [that] has gone unchecked in public meetings, on Facebook and in letters handed round the pubs”. Another source told of an elderly relative of a QIH employee who was advised to stay silent after speaking up in defence of Lunney in a pub.

QIH chief executive Liam McCaffrey says: “What this company’s known for around Ireland are all the wrong things, yet we’re a very strong company, we’ve got great products, great employees, great customers, but that’s not what we’re ever known for and it’s hugely frustrating.”