Your top stories on Tuesday: Irish property tycoon’s secret €2.5m tax refund to wife; food industry tried to push State to oppose smoky flavour ban

A forgotten deal, a €2.5m tax rebate: How an Irish property tycoon’s ‘worrying’ conduct kept him in bankruptcy
Bankrupt property tycoon Derek Quinlan, who still owes Irish taxpayers €403 million through State agency Nama, received a €2.5 million tax rebate from Revenue that he immediately transferred to his wife and hid from his insolvency administrators in the UK.
The money was used to fund their “living expenses”, which included €1,200 (£1,000 stg) per month spent on alcohol and close to £100,000 (€118,000) a year in rent on a six-bedroom London house, newly obtained UK court records show.
Mr Quinlan – one of the most prolific Irish property investors of the Celtic Tiger period, who lost his fortune in the 2008-09 crash – failed to disclose the tax rebate in 2018 to his UK insolvency administrators, who cited it among seven reasons last November why they blocked Mr Quinlan’s exit from bankruptcy.
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