Seán Quinn’s campaign - Courts must prevail in sorry affair

Seán Quinn’s contention, and at this point it is as valuable as any self-serving fantasy, that because the loans he accepted from Anglo Irish Bank may be tainted with illegality that he is not obliged to repay the billions borrowed is as delusional as it is contemptible.

That the debt is owed to the people of Ireland who have had to pick up the Anglo Irish tab — the thick end of €30bn — makes the contention almost seditious. That so many of his fellow citizens are in such dire straits because of the machinations of insatiable “investors” puts the contention in the let-them-eat-cake category of autocratic dismissals.

The vagaries of human nature suggest too that, had Mr Quinn’s investment in Anglo been as profitable as he had once believed, it might then be the legal status of the transactions might never have been questioned.