The Labor Party's finance spokesperson Joan Burton has spearheaded calls for an inquiry into insurance regulations breaches that cost Ireland's richest man, Sean Quinn, and Quinn Insurance, one of many companies he heads, €3.45 million.

Quinn stepped down last week as chairman of the company after it was fined €3.25 million by the Financial Regulator. Quinn himself was fined another €200,000.

The fines were imposed for regulation breaches when undisclosed loans of €288 million were made by one company to another within the Quinn Group to facilitate the purchase by him and family members of a 15 percent stake in Anglo-Irish Bank during the summer.

The regulator said in a statement that there was "reasonable cause to suspect that breaches of the regulatory requirements occurred in relation to Quinn Insurance." The statement added that the breaches related to failure to notify the Financial Regulator prior to providing loans to related companies.

Quinn said he accepted "complete responsibility" but questioned the severity of the fines when he resigned as a director and chairman of the company.

"I feel that the levels of fines do not reflect the fact that there was no risk to policy holders or the taxpayer, but are a result of the pressures existing in the current environment," he said.

"However, we will pay the fines and move on."

Burton said Finance Minister Brian Lenihan must make a full statement on the matter, especially as the institution that was at the center of the share dealings was a beneficiary of the government's bank rescue package. "It appears that money was transferred from one insurance company to another to buy shares in a bank, at a time when all of these institutions were under the supervision of the Financial Regulator," she said.

Quinn Insurance is part of the Quinn Group, which continues to be headed by Sean Quinn and which has substantial interests in diverse industry sectors throughout central and western Europe. It is a market leader in Ireland and Britain in the production of container glass products for the drinks and food trade and is a big provider of building insulation products.

Apart from cement and general insurance activities in Ireland, the group has been active in health insurance since it bought BUPA Ireland in early 2007.

The group's accounts for last year, published last week, show exceptional charges of €829 million were incurred in 2007, resulting in a massive loss of €425 million. The bulk of the exceptional charges were linked to the family's purchase of equity in Anglo-Irish and a number of other unrelated investments.

The accounts said the outstanding exposure to such investments will result in total exceptional losses of close to €970 million.

Quinn, 61, a native of Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh, close to the border with Co. Cavan, is the son of a small farmer and left school at 14 years of age. He lives in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan.