Businessman seen naked after company dinner blamed 'nude sleepwalk'

Multimillionaire Donal Kinsella, 64, could lose his job as deputy chairman of mining firm Kenmare Resources after it was revealed that he repeatedly appeared naked in front of the company secretary after a drink-fuelled dinner.

Mr Kinsella said he had no memory of the incident and that he was a habitual sleepwalker.

Mr Kinsella was in Mozambique with other directors and company secretary Deirdre Corcoran to visit a titanium mine in early May.

After a dinner at the mine, the staff retired to the on-site accommodation block. At around 2.30am Mr Kinsella, a family man with grown children, appeared at Ms Corcoran's door naked.

Over the next two and a half hours he returned twice more, still naked. Ms Corcoran complained and refused to work under Mr Kinsella on a sub-committee of the Kenmare board.

Mr Kinsella said he was unable to remember what happened, but accepted that the incident occurred and apologised to Ms Corcoran.

"It's very upsetting," he said.

"The conclusion was that no harm was done, that there were extenuating circumstances. I was sleepwalking at the time."

Mr Kinsella has since been removed as the company's-audit committee chairman.

His position as Kenmare's deputy chairman is under threat after he told a newspaper that he was removed from the committee post not for the Mozambique incident but because of a row over strategy.

He was one of the most high-profile of Irish losers in the collapse of the Lloyd's insurance market a decade and half ago, and is a stalwart of Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fail party.