The message sent by the long prison sentences handed down by the Special Criminal Court to three of the men behind the kidnapping and brutal assault of businessman Kevin Lunney should be heard loudest in the Border region where this horrific attack took place. The jail terms of 18, 25 and 30 years are a clear signal that the State's criminal justice system will not tolerate such savagery. Local people in the Cavan-Fermanagh area should not tolerate it either, knowing that the mysterious paymaster who financed and benefited from the attack remains at large, even if the muscle who carried it out have been convicted.
Fr Oliver O'Reilly, parish priest of Ballyconnell, courageously used his pulpit in the weeks after the attack on Kevin Lunney in the autumn of 2019 to condemn the "Mafia-style group with its own 'Godfather'" behind the attack. The Special Criminal Court used its platform to echo the sentiments. Mr Justice Tony Hunt said that headline life sentences should be reserved for the paymaster behind the attack if convicted. In his homily in September 2019, Fr O'Reilly said that "no one should be untouchable before the law". The judges confirmed that with these punitive sentences.
The details of this violent crime should chill any community. Lunney was abducted from outside his home and taken to a container where his leg was broken with a baseball bat and the letters “QIH” scored into his chest with a Stanley knife.
The violence came after years of sustained and escalating acts of vandalism, threats and sabotage against Quinn Industrial Holdings, run by Lunney and his colleagues. While employees of QIH, since named Mannok, came out in force in a public show of support for Lunney in the wake of the attack, a climate of anger remains within the local community.
The 'say nothing' culture that permeates in the area undermines the rule of law that protects everyone living there
Former billionaire Sean Quinn, who lost his fortune along with the business that carried his name in the financial crash, has denied any involvement in the kidnapping or campaign of intimidation and has condemned the violence, but he continues to criticise Lunney and his fellow directors over the loss of his company, even as recently as last month – fomenting ill-will in a locality where he commands strong support. This has stirred dangerous emotions.
In 2019 Fr O’Reilly appealed to the “norms of human decency” in the community and asked people not to wash their hands, like Pontius Pilate, of the “obvious cancer of evil in our midst”.
The “say nothing” culture that permeates in the area undermines the rule of law that protects everyone living there. Loyalty should not blind people to this fact. The sentences should reinforce the call to action, that if people have information that might help the investigation they have a duty to share it. Otherwise they are complicit in this extraordinary brutality.