Solicitor slams Lynn comments

Solicitor slams Lynn after weekend interview


Áine Ryan

A MAYO solicitor has described Crossmolina-born  rogue solicitor Michael Lynn’s comments in an exclusive interview with a Sunday newspaper over the weekend as nothing more than ‘weasel words’.
Former TD, Mr Seamus Hughes, echoed the response of the Director General of the Law Society, who yesterday (Monday) also rejected Lynn’s ‘self-justification’ in an Irish Times article.
In an exclusive interview in The Mail on Sunday, Mr Lynn said he was willing to return to Ireland to ‘face up to my responsibilities’ but he also rejected claims that, by taking out multiple mortgages on the same properties, he had committed fraud.
“It’s true I had extensive borrowings. That’s absolutely true,” he said. “But it’s also true that the acts I engaged in and the misguided deeds – on the basis of advice from various professionals and the acceptance of certain parties – was probably misguided. But was it fraudulent? I do not believe so.”
He revealed that he is presently travelling around Europe in an attempt to secure, as far as possible, the investments of those who had put money into his business.
He also claimed that the banks ‘couldn’t get enough of me’.
“When they were considering the merits of giving me a loan for an asset at home they would know about my development abroad. That’s their decision. They were their choices and it was all of our choices to borrow the money,” he said in the interview with the Mail’s Investigative Correspondent, Michael O’Farrell.
“I wouldn’t see any reason why I would have to go to prison and the one thing I want to make clear is that I am not going to be a scapegoat for others,” he said.
“I am not going to be used as an example of what was recognised as an acceptable form and practice of business by bankers, lawyers, accountants and auctioneers. I am not going to be the poster boy who ends up in prison to my cost alone.”
Responding, Seamus Hughes told The Mayo News yesterday: “If Mr Lynn has nothing to fear and believes he adhered strictly to the rules and regulations of the law society and good conveyancing practice, then he should return to this jurisdiction, rather than engaging in cross-border comment.”
“Such comment strikes me that the position he is now adopting amounts to nothing more than weasel-words,” Mr Hughes added.