Derek Quinlan: Why a €2.5m tax rebate kept the Irish financier in bankruptcy

Following a major investigation by our London Correspondent Mark Paul and a UK court order, The Irish Times recently gained access to the bankruptcy files of Derek Quinlan, one of the leading Irish property tycoons before the 2008 crash. In this piece, Mark details how Quinlan paid a €2.5 million tax rebate that he received from Revenue in 2018 to his wife to fund their future lifestyle, a detail that played a key part in the trustees of his case seeking a court extension of his bankruptcy.
In this in-depth feature, Mark Paul goes through the series of events that last November led Derek Quinlan’s UK bankruptcy trustees to seek an extension of his time in financial purgatory, something that was granted by the court.
Mark also offers a profile of Derek Quinlan on his journey from property king to having to account for the cost of his haircuts to the administrators of his bankruptcy.
As part of his UK bankruptcy, Derek Quinlan gave an in-depth interview to the administrators of his case in October 2023. Mark Paul sifted through the transcript of this meeting, which provides Quinlan’s own account of some of his biggest deals and his dealings with some of his biggest creditors, including Nama. It also gives an insight into his tax rebate from Revenue and his huge living expenses.
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