Quinn Jr to sell €400,000 home

His family were the barons of the boom but now Seán Quinn Jr is to sell his home in a bid to purge contempt of court orders after a judge yesterday rejected his alternative offer of a $75,000 (€56,000) payment.

Arrangements for the sale of the home shared by Mr Quinn and his wife Karen Woods at Alder Lodge, Castleknock, Dublin, will now be made. The property, described as Mr Quinn’s only owned asset, is valued at about €400,000 and he is offering to pay to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation his half-share of the proceeds.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday said she accepted Mr Quinn was making efforts to purge his contempt but considered his $75,000 offer inadequate as the contempt ruling arose from her finding he participated in a $500,000 payment to Larissa Puga, general director of Quinn Properties Ukraine, on the eve of IBRC’s takeover of the firm.

Last July, the judge jailed Mr Quinn for three months for contempt. His father, Seán Quinn Sr, served a nine-week prison term for contempt but a warrant remains unexecuted for the arrest of his cousin Peter Darragh Quinn because he remains in the North.

The contempt proceedings have come before the judge several times since, during which Mr Quinn Jr indicated he was anxious to purge contempt.

Yesterday, Martin Hayden SC, for Mr Quinn, said his client was offering a $75,000 payment, funded by his father-in-law Pat Woods, representing the value of the 15% interest held by a Quinn company in the Ukraine firm.

After the judge said she considered the offer inadequate, Mr Hayden asked for time to take instructions and, after doing so, said Mr Quinn was prepared to sell their home.

Adjourning to facilitate the sale, the judge said there may be “another source” of purging the contempt.

When Mr Hayden asked would she consider the house sale proposal as a final purging of the contempt, the judge said she would address that after the sale. The court will be updated on the house sale in October.

Her aim was to secure the undoing of the wrong done via payment of a significant amount to replace what was taken as a result of the actions of Mr Quinn and others, said Ms Justice Dunne.