Bankrupt former property tycoon Derek Quinlan said State property agency Nama warned him not to “say anything negative” when he appeared before an Oireachtas inquiry into the banking crash.
He also said former Nama chairman Frank Daly, who previously chaired Revenue, was “unhappy” with him because Mr Quinlan was a former tax inspector who had ended up with €3.5 billion of property debts to Irish taxpayers.
Mr Quinlan, who still owes Nama €403 million, alleged that Mr Daly’s attitude towards him may have been a factor in why the agency had never forgiven any of his debt, as it had with other borrowers.
The former property tycoon made the claims in documents filed as part of his bankruptcy case in London. The Irish Times was granted access to his bankruptcy file after obtaining a court order.
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The documents reveal that Mr Quinlan’s trustees in bankruptcy reviewed his Nama file last year and concluded the State agency was not satisfied he had ever “made full disclosure” of his financial affairs. Jacob Beake, one of trustees who last year objected to Mr Quinlan’s discharge from bankruptcy, said this was why he had never been granted a Nama exit deal.
His bankruptcy file also includes a 2018 letter from Nama to his solicitors in which the agency said it wouldn’t do a debt deal with him because of “inaccuracies and inconsistencies” in the financial information he had given it.
Nama also raised queries about the mingling of Mr Quinlan’s finances with those of his wife, Siobhan Quinlan, whom Nama said had access to €5 million of funds in the Isle of Man. Mr Quinlan said he had always been “compliant” with Nama, and a separate letter from the agency said he had “in general” co-operated with its efforts to sell his assets to pay debt.
The trove of bankruptcy documents also includes secret correspondence between Mr Quinlan and Nama over a proposed deal in 2017 for US billionaire Riaz Valani to back his buyout from the agency for a “nuisance payment” of €1.25 million.
Mr Valani was a US broker who in the 1990s famously helped singer David Bowie to invent the Bowie Bond financial product. The billionaire later made his fortune in the Juul vapes company.
Mr Quinlan wrote to Nama pleading with it to accept Mr Valani’s offer. He said he had decided to look forward rather than backwards. “I now respectfully ask that Nama do the same.”
The proposed deal was not accepted by Nama, however.
“I now recognise that Nama will never compromise,” said Mr Quinlan as he entered bankruptcy in 2022.
His automatic discharge from insolvency was delayed by a year to November 23rd this year, after the trustees said Mr Quinlan was “not co-operating” with their investigation into his affairs. Mr Quinlan declined to comment to The Irish Times, while Nama was also contacted for comment.
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