Ireland's once-richest man Sean Quinn threatened to sue the daughter of a senior executive of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), formerly Anglo Irish Bank, for defamation after she called him "a f***ing c***" when chatting with a friend on a social networking site.

The tweet by the 20-year-old daughter of Richard Woodhouse, IBRC's head of specialised asset management, was made after her father cancelled a family holiday in order to concentrate on the bank's multi-jurisdiction case against the Quinn family to stop asset-stripping in their international property portfolio worth €500m.

Mr Quinn later confronted Mr Woodhouse in the corridors of the High Court in Dublin about the matter after the contempt of court trial of the tycoon, along with his son Sean Quinn Jnr and nephew Peter Quinn, ended.

Mr Quinn told Mr Woodhouse that he was "disappointed" about the comment, which he claimed to have come across by chance during routine searches of the internet.

Mr Woodhouse had been unaware of the comment and immediately informed other senior managers in the bank.

His daughter's Twitter account was disabled almost immediately. Mr Quinn, however, wrote a legal letter alleging he had been defamed.

This was denied in legal correspondence and the matter appeared to have fizzled out until somehow it emerged again this weekend.

In a statement, the former Anglo Irish Bank said: "IBRC confirms that it is aware of the social media comment about Mr Sean Quinn Snr which was posted by the daughter of a senior IBRC executive.

"IBRC does not condone the content of the social media comment and views the incident as both inappropriate and regrettable. IBRC has no further comment on the matter."

A Quinn family spokesman last night said: "We have no comment on this matter."

Sunday Independent