'GOOD morning, Mr Quinlan. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ronald Quinlan. I don't believe we're related."

The slightly quizzical look appeared to invite me to say more. So I did.

"I've come a long way to see you. I was hoping you might have time to talk to me at some stage today," I added, wondering if my rather cheeky offer might be taken up.

Derek Quinlan smiled as he pressed the plump palm of his large, soft hand into mine in a firm, professional handshake. But the smile never quite made it as far as his eyes. Rather, they darted from side to side and up and down as the wealthy financier tried to place the stranger who had just landed on his doorstep in Switzerland.

"Oh, I'm with the Sunday Independent," I added by way of assistance.

"I'd like to talk to you about your move to Switzerland, if that's OK."

Derek Quinlan's smile quickly gave way to a frown.

"I have absolutely nothing to say," he bellowed, reaching to open the door of his 08 Dublin-registered Mercedes S500, where his wife Siobhan sat waiting, shielding her eyes behind large designer sunglasses from the glare of the early morning sun filtering through the car's windscreen.

Clicking on the car's central locking system, Mr Quinlan then fired up the Mercedes's powerful engine and drove off, leaving all the questions I had intended to ask him very much unanswered.

Why precisely, for example, had he stepped down last July as chairman of Quinlan Private, the private equity and property investment firm he founded in 1989?

And why did he decide to emigrate to Switzerland only a month later? For "tax and personal reasons", the news-papers had said at the time, announcing the surprise move.

But such a cursory explanation has done little to dispel the mystery that surrounds the withdrawal of Derek Quinlan from his business, and from this country.

That mystery heightened considerably recently with the admission of a case being brought by developer Bernard McNamara against the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) to the Commercial Court in relation to the former Irish Glass Bottle (IGB) site in Ringsend.

Purchased for a staggering €412m in 2007 by Becbay -- a consortium in which Quinlan partnered McNamara and the DDDA -- the IGB site is now understood to have fallen in value to a relatively paltry €50m, according to the most recent valuations prepared for the DDDA, or just 15 per cent of its boomtime sale price.

In his case, Mr McNamara claims he is facing potential losses of up to €140m as a result of the DDDA's inability to meet its obligations on the agreement it reached with him and others, including Derek Quinlan, to develop the Ringsend site.

Should McNamara and the DDDA fail to reach a settlement in the matter, the ensuing High Court case threatens to open up the Clare-born developer's -- and, by extension, Derek Quinlan's -- financial affairs, and their highly confidential dealings, to a level of public scrutiny both men have been at pains to avoid throughout their careers.

Certainly, in Quinlan's case, his discretion over the years served him well both in his dealings as revenue commissioner, and later as dealmaker to the ranks of Ireland's High Net Worth Individuals.

Before the crash, he bestrode the boom as a Colossus, with a legion of the leading lights from Ireland's legal and medical professions held in his thrall by the promise of the lucrative returns on property investment he offered.

Included in those smitten by the invitation to place their money with the syndicates Quinlan put together were former Attorney General Dermot Gleeson; Arnotts chairman Richard Nesbitt; the former Master of Holles Street Hospital, Dr Peter Boylan; cinema tycoon Paul Anderson; and legendary broadcaster Gay Byrne.

By anyone's estimation it was an exclusive club, with only the most well-resourced and well-connected of Ireland's moneyed classes invited to partake in the party, frequently on foot of a personal phone call from Derek Quinlan himself.

One individual who spoke to the Sunday Independent last week recalled one such contact from Mr Quinlan during the boom.

"He phoned me one day to ask if I would be interested in coming on board in a deal he was putting together. When I asked how much he needed from me, he told me €400,000. It was an amount I could have managed. But that figure turned out to be the deposit. Needless to say, I had to count myself out pretty quickly."

While Derek Quinlan moved to Switzerland only at the end of last August, he already appears to be well established in his new home in Epalinges, a quiet hamlet on the outskirts of the city of Lausanne.

The new Quinlan family residence is arguably one of the most substantial in the area. It is certainly one of the most private, located as it is at the end of a long, sweeping driveway, much of which is obscured by tall, mature trees.

Other telling -- albeit incidental -- signs of Mr Quinlan's intention to remain in Switzerland into the future are parked in his driveway.

The family's French-registered BMW X5 jeep has recently been moved to Epalinges from the Quinlans' sprawling villa in the ultra-exclusive playground of the rich and famous, St Jean Cap Ferrat in the Cote d'Azur.

The French Riviera property -- which was recently downgraded in value by Savills International from €100m to €75m -- is understood to be on the market.

The media-shy financier's decision to ship his Dublin-registered Mercedes S500 to his new Swiss home also suggests that he won't be returning to Ireland to live any time soon.

But while Derek Quinlan is a long way from his native Dublin, his home in Epalinges is within easy reach of Geneva International Airport, where upwards of a dozen flights a day can have him on the ground at London City Airport within two-and-a-half hours any day of the week.

It is understood that the financier makes frequent use of this link to travel to the British capital for meetings with Glenn Maud, the English property investor with whom he jointly owns the Citi Tower in London's Canary Wharf, as well as the Madrid headquarters of Spanish banking giant, Banco Santander.

Messrs Quinlan and Maud jointly purchased the landmark properties for €1.1bn and €1.9bn in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Like Quinlan, Mr Maud is famously secretive in relation to the matter of his business dealings. And, not unlike his Irish business partner, Maud is also known to commute back and forth between the UK and Switzerland, where he has his own second home in Gstaad.

Given the almost mythic reputation of the Swiss for the protection of the right to privacy in the conduct of both one's personal and business affairs, it's hardly surprising that Derek Quinlan has chosen to make Switzerland his new home.

Indeed, it would seem that Mr Quinlan is already well on his way to becoming more Swiss than the Swiss themselves when it comes to the question of privacy -- judging by the Sunday Independent's experiences in Epalinges at least.

For, while Derek Quinlan had his lawyers in Zurich send us an angry letter, peppered with allegations of invasion of privacy and harassment, the Swiss police didn't think it necessary to move myself and my colleague on as we waited outside the financier's house for two days in a hired car in an effort to secure an interview with him.

Having checked our documents, and inquired after the name of the newspaper we worked for and the person whom we were seeking, the two officers who had appear-ed on the scene within 10 minutes of our own arrival left again, having bid us a good day.

And, to give them their due, Mr Quinlan's new neighbours were even more accommodating during our brief sojourn in Epalinges.

Noting the presence of our car outside his house, one especially well-mannered resident approached us on the second day of our wait, carrying what appeared to be a carton of a half a dozen eggs.

Stepping up to the front passenger-side car window, the man opened the box to reveal two freshly prepared espressos.

"Something to keep you from sleeping," he said. "You need anything else, let me know," he added before going back inside his home.

If only the Irish welcome in Epalinges had been as warm.

Sunday Independent