John McCartin, board member of Mannok - the new name for the former Quinn Group - says there was nothing new to him in the Quinn Country documentary that aired on RTE this week.
Speaking on the Joe Finnegan Show this morning, Mr McCartin - a victim of the campaign of intimidation that was highlighted in the documentary himself, said that what was highlighted in the series was something he had lived through, seen through or heard before.
He told Shannonside Northern Sound that he finds it remarkable, the level of interest in the story; the amount of emotion around it; and how "exercised" the people of this region are still - about the entire subject.
The Leitrim native said that Mannok did not participate in the documentary because it didn't have anything to add to Sean Quinn's story.
He pointed out that given the environment in which board members live - one where tensions were poked, stoked and raised to the point that they were attacked, had cars burned at their homes, and what happened to Kevin Lunney, they had no appetite to "inflame tensions any further".
As to whether the documentary was fair in its assertions, Mr McCartins said that was up to the audience to determine.
"I don't want to get into whether it was or it wasn't a fair account because he interviewed people and they said it as they saw it. So everybody had their own view and their own bit to say. Everyone took the view I thought they would take and everyone said what I thought they would say. I will congratulate Trevor for one thing, in that he made what I thought was an enthralling piece of television and he did get from people, what they thought"
