Sean Quinn was once the richest person in Ireland but he pretended to be a self-made man with simple tastes.

At the height of his fame, he told RTE radio that he just liked sitting at home and playing a few card games with friends.

But his little home was a palatial mansion in Ballyconnell complete with an indoor golf simulator, a putting green overlooking a 15 metre swimming pool, a sunken hot tub, a Jacuzzi pool, a cinema and snooker room.

Quinn borrowed €2.5 billion in order to fund his speculative activities and became the biggest casualty of the crash.

But like all the Irish rich, he has a tremendous sense of entitlement and has spent the last 18 months hatching a scheme to put €500 million of his assets beyond the reach of the state.

Behind the poor mouth rhetoric, is a ruthless businessman who thinks the Irish people owe him a living.

If Quinn lived on social welfare and committed any fraud, he would be serving a year long prison sentence now. But the media talk about the ‘human drama’ and turn the whole affair into a soap opera.

The only amazing thing about the Quinn saga is that his son Sean is the only one in jail. The cousin, Peter, has skipped off and, according to the Irish Times; nothing can be done to compel him to return.

Beyond the Quinn family, there are a host of others at the top of Anglo-Irish who are still playing at their golf clubs. Anglo-Irish bank ran one of the biggest scams in Irish business history and it is costing the people of Ireland €49 billion.

Yet four years after the crisis broke, not a single director has been landed in jail.

A group of executives at Anglo-Irish refused to co-operate with investigations while the director of corporate enforcement, Paul Appleby, merely said he had no powers to force them to give evidence. Appleby will soon retire on a lump sum of €225,000 and an annual pension of €73,000.

If we had any sort of decent system, Quinn would be in jail for life; his mansion would be opened as a tourist attraction, maybe as a Museum of Corporate Arrogance; and the rest of the Anglo crew would join him in neighboring cells.