# Even in prison, there are two Irelands



## DB74 (25 Jul 2012)

[broken link removed]

Even in Mountjoy Prison, Seán Quinn jnr enjoys treatment denied those from the wrong class

LAST FRIDAY, Seán Quinn jnr was sent to Mountjoy Prison for three months for “outrageous” contempt of court in hiding nearly half a billion euro that belongs to the Irish people. But he’s not in Mountjoy. He spent one night in that nasty place. On Saturday, he was transferred to a very different institution on the same campus, the Training Unit, where, we are told, he is to serve all of the rest of his sentence. This decision, according to reports, was taken by “prison authorities”.

To most people, this is a minor detail. To a prisoner, it makes all the difference in the world. The short distance between Mountjoy and the Training Unit is a vast gulf in hope, dignity and self-respect. Mountjoy is a kip. The Training Unit is a decent enough place to be. Quinn being sent there means two things. One is that he remains an extremely privileged man. The other is that some other criminal, almost certainly one who has done less harm to Irish society, will pay for Seán Quinn’s privileges.

The thing to grasp about the Training Unit – demanding a leap of imagination by those of us on the outside – is there’s a really long waiting list to get into it. Once you pass into the parallel universe of incarceration, this is where you want to be. The unit is “one of the best prisons, if not the best, in the country” – according to inmates themselves, interviewed by the prisons inspectorate. Unlike Mountjoy, it is not infested with cockroaches and has not been officially deemed unfit for habitation. No one has to “slop out”.

According to the prisons inspector: “A person, familiar with the Prison Service, on being shown around the Training Unit, would assume from looking in the doors that this was an extremely clean and tidy technical college, with excellent IT facilities and with slightly older students! Indeed the atmosphere is precisely what you would expect in a college. Good-humoured banter, not loud and shouted conversations, as elsewhere within the system.”

The Training Unit has single bedrooms rather than cells. There are no steel bars on the windows. Prisoners have their own keys to their rooms and are free to move around the building. They’re also free to lock themselves into their rooms, giving them the immense privilege of privacy. There is a good library. The unit is drug-free. Medical care is far better than in the general system and levels of violence between prisoners are very low.

In 2005, the inspectorate, which is often harshly critical of conditions in the system, called the unit “a very good service to prisoners . . . those of them who wish to partake in work training, education or whatever line they wish to follow are encouraged, supported and helped all the way”. Conditions have deteriorated somewhat since then because of overcrowding and staff reductions, but the unit is still the Ritz of the prison world.

So why does Seán Quinn get to serve his time there? The official description of the purpose of the unit runs as follows: “The main focus of the Training Unit is to provide industrial training and education to prisoners, assisting them in securing employment on release . . . The majority of the prisoners have served a greater part of the sentence in other prisons and then transferred as part of a planned sentence programme.” The unit also has a secondary purpose – as a safe place for prisoners with a history of substance abuse who are completing a detox programme.

What the unit is emphatically not supposed to be for is prisoners serving short sentences. The 2005 prison inspectorate report (the only one I can find that gives a detailed breakdown of the nature of the inmates) shows that of the 96 prisoners then in the unit, none was serving a sentence of less than six months and just one was serving a sentence of less than a year. By contrast, 58 were serving sentences of four years to life. It is quite clear the primary function of the unit is to act as a bridge back into society for long-term prisoners.

Seán Quinn is not serving a long sentence – he’s in for three months. He’s not recovering from substance abuse. He is not in need of training: he’s a very well educated businessman. There is nothing to suggest he was assessed in Mountjoy and deemed to be especially in need of the specific and highly privileged facilities of the Training Unit: he was in Mountjoy for one night.

But because Quinn is there, someone else isn’t. Statistically, that anonymous someone is probably badly educated, from a poor urban background and caught up in drugs. The unit houses just 117 inmates – a tiny fraction of the 4,000-plus male prison population. Almost every one of those 4,000 men wants to be where Quinn is, and many of them are on the waiting list to get in. But they’re from the wrong class and they committed the wrong sort of offence. Even in prison, there are two Irelands and two kinds of crime.


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## DB74 (25 Jul 2012)

Hands up if you're surprised


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## DB74 (25 Jul 2012)

How many contempt prisoners get transferred to this training unit I wonder?

Did the Rossport 5 get transferred here during their incarceration?


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## bazermc (25 Jul 2012)

What exactly is Quinn jnr being trained in, in order for him to be in the traning unit?

Where did Joe Higgins and co. go where they were sent to prison?

Also what about Ray Burke?  Where was he sent?


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## DB74 (25 Jul 2012)

bazermc said:


> What exactly is Quinn jnr being trained in, in order for him to be in the traning unit?



Corporate Governance hopefully


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## terrontress (25 Jul 2012)

If he were in the main prison he would be a magnet for the hardened criminals, both in terms of those who have a grudge with how the country has turned out, those who have a chip on their shoulder against the priveleged and those who might see themselves as being able to blackmail him.

The state has withdrawn his liberty and as such has a duty of care so I think that this move is reasonable. The alternative is to let him out a few hours after he has been admitted, which I understand is common in Mountjoy.

The real injustice here is that the state is having to pay to accomodate him.


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## RonanC (25 Jul 2012)

bazermc said:


> What exactly is Quinn jnr being trained in, in order for him to be in the traning unit?
> 
> Where did Joe Higgins and co. go where they were sent to prison?
> 
> Also what about Ray Burke? Where was he sent?


 
Joe Higgins - Training Unit Mountjoy 

Ray Bourke - Arbour Hill


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## Delboy (25 Jul 2012)

terrontress said:


> If he were in the main prison he would be a magnet for the hardened criminals, both in terms of those who have a grudge with how the country has turned out, those who have a chip on their shoulder against the priveleged and those who might see themselves as being able to blackmail him.
> 
> The state has withdrawn his liberty and as such has a duty of care so I think that this move is reasonable. The alternative is to let him out a few hours after he has been admitted, which I understand is common in Mountjoy.
> 
> The real injustice here is that the state is having to pay to accomodate him.



there are plenty other folk in the general prison population who are in fear of members of other gangs inside etc...they don't get moved to the training unit


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## bazermc (25 Jul 2012)

RonanC said:


> Joe Higgins - Training Unit Mountjoy


 
Send him back the training didnt work!


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## TarfHead (25 Jul 2012)

My guess is that, in the management of the ecosystem that is Mountjoy prison, the prison's interest are best served by having a high-profile individual like him in the Training Unit.


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## BillK (25 Jul 2012)

Presumably he can pay for his board and lodging in the Training Unit?


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## Guest105 (25 Jul 2012)

Will this mean that he will now have a criminal record and as a result will be unable to enter Australia or the United States or never be able to get a decent job again?


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## Leper (26 Jul 2012)

Being charged does not mean he has been convicted.  Remember innocence is presumed until guilt is proven.


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## ajapale (26 Jul 2012)

Is being held in contempt of court in a civil case equivalent to a criminal conviction?


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## terrontress (27 Jul 2012)

Delboy said:


> there are plenty other folk in the general prison population who are in fear of members of other gangs inside etc...they don't get moved to the training unit


 
Do they not? Maybe open prisons or some form of protective unit

Let's be honest here, he is drug-free, extremely unlikely to abscond, there is no threat of violence from him and he would be a likely target to headcases which would lead to massive negative publicity for the prison service.

With all that in mind I think such a prison is the correct choice.


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## terrontress (27 Jul 2012)

cashier said:


> Will this mean that he will now have a criminal record and as a result will be unable to enter Australia or the United States or never be able to get a decent job again?


 
Is it not just that it prevents you getting a visa but as there is a visa waiver programme for Irish tourists going to these countries that he will be fine?

Working there might be a different matter.


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## micmclo (27 Jul 2012)

Liam Lawlor got a cell on his own which would be very rare in there

They moved out a prisoner to make room for him

When that prisoner died a few years later from some issue due to drugs the Lawlor family remembered and sent a mass card and contacted the family 

I thought that was a nice gesture, he wasn't all bad


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## Sunny (27 Jul 2012)

What planet is this guy from?

[broken link removed]


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## demoivre (27 Jul 2012)

Sunny said:


> What planet is this guy from?
> 
> [broken link removed]



The same planet as the guys at Anglo who recklessly lent him the €2.8bn ?


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## Sunny (27 Jul 2012)

demoivre said:


> The same planet as the guys at Anglo who recklessly lent him the €2.8bn ?


 
Yes, you are right. Saint Sean is a victim of the bankers. 

It's a Dublin based conspiracy against the people of the border regions.

Not surprised that John Waters doesn't get it either. [broken link removed]  

This has nothing do with what Quinn did with his money or the financial system or the banks. He was perfectly entitled to do what he wanted. This is about the people in this Country having to pay higher insurance premiums for the next 15 years to pay for the way he ran his insurance company. This is about him deliberately moving over €500m of assets out of his creditors reach. This is about him lying in court and being in comtempt of court orders. This is about him and his family thinking they are different to everyone else because they put bread on the tables of some workers. Anglo put bread on the tables of more workers than Quinn ever did and I don't see Sean Fitzpatrick getting sympathy from many people.   

And yet he still goes on the radio saying he is the victim and how it has been very hard on mammy. Give me a break.


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## Delboy (27 Jul 2012)

micmclo said:


> I thought that was a nice gesture, he wasn't all bad



your right, he was just misunderstood!!!!! a sheep in wolves clothing!


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## dereko1969 (27 Jul 2012)

Sunny said:


> Yes, you are right. Saint Sean is a victim of the bankers.
> 
> It's a Dublin based conspiracy against the people of the border regions.
> 
> ...


 
Brilliant post - John Waters is an absolute idiot, he has no clue about anything at this stage.

For your own peace of mind don't go anywhere near the Journal, any time there's anything about the Quinns on there the same rubbish is spouted about a Dublin/meeja conspiracy in the comments. I despair!


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## T McGibney (27 Jul 2012)

Sunny said:


> Yes, you are right. Saint Sean is a victim of the bankers.
> 
> *It's a Dublin based conspiracy against the people of the border regions.*
> 
> Not surprised that John Waters doesn't get it either. [broken link removed]






dereko1969 said:


> Brilliant post - John Waters is an absolute idiot, he has no clue about anything at this stage.
> 
> For your own peace of mind don't go anywhere near the Journal, any time  there's anything about the Quinns on there *the same rubbish *is spouted  about a Dublin/meeja conspiracy in the comments. I despair!



Strange then how neither Waters nor Quinn, in the articles quoted, make any reference whatsoever to any alleged geography-based or media conspiracy?

ps I don't know what to say about the logic of labelling someone 'brilliant' when you agree with their opinion and an 'idiot' when you disagree with them.


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## Betsy Og (27 Jul 2012)

Sean Quinn was a good guy who did some monumentally stupid things - principally betting it all on Anglo. What he did when the excrement hit the fan is understandable if you were in his shoes, doesnt make it right but does make it understandable - I wouldnt really demonise him for that bit of the puzzle. 

However neither do I buy the blaming others bit, if you're going to run the gauntlet by trying to hide assets then you have to say "its a fair cop guv" and hold out your hands for the cuffs, no bleating about it.

As regards where Quinn Junior was housed, I agree with it. Does anyone seriously think that he's a physical danger to others?, does anyone think he'd survive with the general populace? Wouldnt a minimum security prison be more appropriate and cost effective? Its just unfortunate that the high security prison is also a kip - if Thornton Hall was built and was the best in modern luxury, I'd have no qualms about Quinn & Seanie (in due course) slopping out in the 'joy, while the hard men had opulance in Thornton Hall.

I'd have to agree with John Waters as regards peoples attitude, some on here seem to want him in with violent criminals, would it make you feel better to think he was beaten or raped??, is that how low the country has gone? Recoup what money you can, take away their liberty if you must, but I dont take any pleasure in the thoughts of them being put in physical fear. 

The hard facts are that your average con has a far better chance of survival in the general prison population than a white collar criminal. So if you're talking of "2 Irelands" in prison, I think violent offenders, sex offenders and drug offenders are 1 Ireland, and the other Ireland is everyone else who goes to prison.


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## Sunny (27 Jul 2012)

T McGibney said:


> Strange then how neither Waters nor Quinn, in the articles quoted, make any reference whatsoever to any alleged geography-based or media conspiracy?
> 
> ps I don't know what to say about the logic of labelling someone 'brilliant' when you agree with their opinion and an 'idiot' when you disagree with them.



Where did I say it was quoted in the articles? Have heard plenty of ordinary people from that region say it though.


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## Purple (27 Jul 2012)

Betsy Og said:


> Sean Quinn was a good guy who did some monumentally stupid things - principally betting it all on Anglo.



I think buying an insurance company, in a specialised industry that he knew nothing about, (when other insurance companies had run a mile) and then running like a ponzy scheme ‘till the UK regulators pulled in his reigns has to rank as his first and biggest mistake. Was is hubris, greed or stupidity or all three?
Anglo  were not part of the core problem, they were just too blinded by their own greed and incompetence to see past the dog and pony show so they kept the whole thing afloat by pumping other people's money into the whole foul jamboree.


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## Betsy Og (27 Jul 2012)

Purple said:


> I think buying an insurance company, in a specialised industry that he knew nothing about, (when other insurance companies had run a mile) and then running like a ponzy scheme ‘till the UK regulators pulled in his reigns has to rank as his first and biggest mistake. Was is hubris, greed or stupidity or all three?
> Anglo were not part of the core problem, they were just too blinded by their own greed and incompetence to see past the dog and pony show.


 
I must have missed that point as I was under the impression that the insurance side (in the Republic at least) was successful. I gather they went more aggressively into the UK trying to get market share but, economically (whatever about regulatory-wise) that could make sense if your ROI operation supported you while you got your foot in the door. You could then get into more normal pricing and into profit after the lead-in period.

Greed no doubt fuelled the Anglo splurge and yes that is a fault I'd hold against people. Just on a numbers basis, I thought it Anglo was the root of, and major part of, his problems - i.e. if no Anglo then all the businesses would still be going?????


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## Complainer (27 Jul 2012)

Sunny said:


> What planet is this guy from?
> 
> [broken link removed]



Planet Cavan.


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## T McGibney (27 Jul 2012)

Teemore isn't even in Cavan...


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## DerKaiser (30 Jul 2012)

Betsy Og said:


> I must have missed that point as I was under the impression that the insurance side (in the Republic at least) was successful. I gather they went more aggressively into the UK trying to get market share but, economically (whatever about regulatory-wise) that could make sense if your ROI operation supported you while you got your foot in the door. You could then get into more normal pricing and into profit after the lead-in period.


 
You can obviously compete aggressively on price but you have to hold adequate reserves.

What Quinn did was take in the premium but fail to honour the promise of paying the claim.

People talk about moral hazard as some kind of abstract concept but we are very much in a world of moral hazard.  Quinn insurance was not in a position to pay out on all its claims.  The state has stepped in to fulfil the false guarantees given.  I think we all need to think a little bit deeper about how we would feel if, rather than facing an insurance levy, we ended up having to pay massive costs out of our own pocket that we had already paid to avoid through insurance.


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## demoivre (22 Aug 2012)

Sunny said:


> Yes, you are right. Saint Sean is a victim of the bankers.
> 
> It's a Dublin based conspiracy against the people of the border regions.
> 
> ...



Nothing to do with banks? Really? Who is chasing the €500m ?


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## TarfHead (22 Aug 2012)

demoivre said:


> Nothing to do with banks? Really? Who is chasing the €500m ?


 
In effect, the Irish State is chasing the €500m.


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## DB74 (1 Oct 2012)

I see the GAA are now officially supporting the Quinn family


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## blueband (1 Oct 2012)

thats hardly a surprise, from what i hear he was always very supportive of them.


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## Betsy Og (1 Oct 2012)

I cant quite figure out why the media think this (the GAA reading a few announcements) is a big deal. Sean Quinn's brother was a former president of the association, the Quinn's & their communities are probably big GAA followers (as are most areas amuigh faoin tuath, unless perhaps among those of planter origins - and at this stage maybe thats not fair either), anyway its no surprise that there is support for him at a local level, he did employ many of them for years afterall.

The GAA is non party political - i.e. they dont come out for FF Vs FG in the run up to an election. I was a bit surprised there seemed to be a tacit pro-Europe endorsement in the Summer, but I dont recall the finer detail on that.

With the current media interest you'd swear the Central Council of the GAA was after calling for an uprising.


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## DB74 (2 Oct 2012)

Well I think there is a bit of a difference between senior GAA figures personally supporting the Quinns at their rallies and making an announcement at a county final regarding same, irrespective of whether people are involved in the organisation at a high level or not.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who support the GAA and attended the county final on Sunday who do not agree with the Quinn's stance on this issue.

At the end of the day, Peter Quinn junior is a fugitive from the law-of-the-land in this country, whether he or the GAA like it or not.


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## T McGibney (2 Oct 2012)

Lighten up, it was only a PA announcement, probably sandwiched in between messages about badly parked cars and forthcoming charity fundraisers.


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