Derek Quinlan’s tale is a salutary one – he is just misunderstood

When the history of Nama is written, Derek Quinlan will undoubtedly emerge as an individual more sinned against than sinning. A true business colossus brought down by nit-picking civil servants hell bent on looking after the interests of the taxpayers.
Here is a man who repaid €3.1 billion of the €3.5 billion he owed the Irish taxpayer, but was still expected to pay off the balance and found himself in a modern-day version of debt servitude that ultimately forced him into bankruptcy.
It is a salutary tale. Quinlan told his UK bankruptcy trustees last October that he was made an example of because he was Nama’s biggest debtor.
The former financier and property tycoon says he was misled from the start by Nama. Having been promised a smooth ride in 2014, he was told that if he answered “five questions” he would be let out of Nama and his debts forgiven. Instead, he was asked to pay back all the money he owed the taxpayer.
He then found himself dragged in front of the banking inquiry in 2016. Derek desperately wanted to tell the members of the commission the truth about Nama and their ridiculous insistence that he pay his debt. Instead, he was gagged by Nama.
[ Derek Quinlan’s Nama battle: ‘I am destined to spend the rest of my life under Nama’s shadow’Opens in new window ]
And it just got worse. It appears that Nama – currently on track to wind up next year with a surplus of €5.2 billion – didn’t know what it was doing and made a complete mess of selling his assets. It sold all of them – including the paintings – at the wrong time in the market, Quinlan claims.
Nama would have made “hundreds of millions more if they had waited”. Not only would this have covered all of Quinlan’s debt, but it would also have left a significant surplus. Instead, Quinlan was left with a €403 million shortfall. Why Nama put the interest of the taxpayer ahead of Quinlan’s remains a mystery to this day.
As if this was not bad enough, Quinlan was once again singled out for special punishment. Unlike his fellow debtors who had “hundreds of millions” in debts forgiven by Nama once all their assets had been sold, he was left on the hook for the €403 million.
He went to Nama in 2017 with an ingenious offer – backed by US billionaire Riaz Valani – to pay them €1.25 million if they would write off the remaining debt.
Nama hid their pettiness behind a claim that Quinlan had not fully disclosed the details of his finances. They made much of the intermingling of his finances with those of his wife Siobhan Quinlan, who was independently wealthy.
“She made some money a few years ago down south. Buying and selling property,” he told his UK bankruptcy trustee. This included Fibonacci Square in Dublin 4, which she bought it in 2015 without any funds from her husband.
Nama just would not see sense, claiming “certain inaccuracies and inconsistencies” in the information received from him and seeking a sworn statement of affairs from his wife, “given the apparent interconnectivity of her financial affairs with Derek Quinlan’s”.
Was Quinlan being punished for having an astute businesswoman for a wife? Looks like it.
Shortly after Nama turned down his compelling €1.25 million offer, Quinlan was sued by another billionaire investor, Robert Tchenguiz, in connection with a deal not connected to Nama.
Quinlan continued to fight the good fight on a pension of £3,000 a year while living in the humble surrounds of a house on Fulham Palace Road in London with an annual rent, paid in advance, of £105,000 a year. Quite a concession for a man who previously lived in a rented apartment in Monaco, which Nama estimated cost €30,000 a month.
[ Derek Quinlan: The ex-property king who had to declare haircuts to a bankruptcy officialOpens in new window ]
Thankfully, his independently wealthy wife – who had access to €5 million in the Isle of Man – could pay the rent and keep the wolf from the door with some help from the Barclay brothers.
In the end Quinlan had to concede defeat, and in November 2022 he was declared bankrupt on his own application. A good man done down by the over-zealous bureaucrats of Nama.
It is hard to fathom why he was treated in this way. But there is an answer – good old-fashioned vengeance. According to Quinlan, the chairman of Nama, Frank Daly, had it in for him.
Quinlan had worked as a tax inspector before leaving the Revenue Commissioners and going into private practice and ultimately property investment. Daly, who was a former chairman of Revenue, was “very unhappy” that a former tax inspector should end up in the pickle Quinlan found himself in.
As he told the UK bankruptcy court: “Due to Nama’s absolute refusal to release me, I have been unable to restart my career in finance and property. My earning capacity has been decimated. Given the level of the shortfall, my age of 75 and my current health, it is highly unlikely that I will even be in a position to fully repay the sums owed to Nama.”
“I now recognise that Nama will never compromise, and I am destined to spend the rest of my life under Nama’s shadow unless I accept the fact I am insolvent. I am unable to return to my former career in finance and property until such point that I am free of Nama’s shackles and, perversely, bankruptcy is my only route of achieving that.”
All this just because the Irish taxpayer wanted their money back.
A State apology will no doubt be offered in the fullness of time.