Ventilator company sold high spec luxury cars
Robert Quirke, President and CEO of ROQU Group pictured at the pilot launch of Health Passport Ireland.
A festival management company that imported €10m worth of Chinese ventilators for the HSE which were never used sold two high-spec luxury cars for approximately €325,000 on the same day earlier this year.
Roqu Media International, a sister company of Roqu Group, sold a 2017 Maserati Gran Turismo and a 2017 Ferrari 488 Spyder to a dealership in Dublin on January 26.
The understands that Roqu CEO Robert Quirke, is no longer resident in Ireland.
Mr Quirke did not respond to queries as to where he is currently domiciled, nor as to the purpose of the two car transactions made on behalf of his company.
Roqu first purchased the Maserati on March 14, 2020, nine days before the company received €14.1m from the HSE for the procurement of 328 ventilators from China.
In the end, just 64 devices were delivered, with Roqu returning €3.8m, while the HSE has engaged the services of legal firm Philip Lee to aid it in recouping some or all of the €10.3m outstanding via dispute resolution.
Roqu Media International sold the red Maserati to the north Dublin dealership for €75,000. The car had no outstanding financial repayments due on it at the time, meaning it had been owned whole. The four-year-old model subsequently went on sale for €100,000.
The trade price for the Ferrari, which was sold to the same dealership, is unknown at present, though motor industry sources have suggested that such a car aged four years would be expected to fetch a sale price of roughly €250,000.
Separately, Roqu’s more recent venture, a health passport smartphone application, has been rebranded for a second time.
Health Passport Ireland, which became Health Passport Europe earlier this year, is now known as Health Passport Worldwide.
Health passports are one of many possible solutions being considered by governments worldwide as to how to effectively reopen society while maintaining Covid-19 restrictions.
A duplicate website to that for Health Passport Europe had been set up for Health Passport Worldwide, and for a time ran in tandem with the other site, though the former now links to the newly branded product, as does the Health Passport Ireland site.
Mr Quirke did not reply to a query as to why the venture was apparently rebranding for a second time.
From last July, Mr Quirke had lobbied the HSE repeatedly as to its interest in a further initiative involving his digital Covid passport, despite the outstanding issues stemming from the previous ventilator transaction.
Last month Health Passport Europe had been a gold sponsor of the Health Summit, an annual event held in Ireland, and addressed by the CEO of the HSE and the Minister for Health. Mr Quirke had also been billed as addressing the event, but in the end did not do so citing “work commitments”.
