David Drumm: ‘There is a witch hunt ... I convince myself that this will pass’

An Irish Central exclusive interview with the former Anglo Irish Bank boss now in US

He ironically believes Irish taxpayers money is being squandered in the relentless pursuit of him, and that the new regime at Anglo have much to answer for in how they have spent their time in vendettas against him and others since taking over.

At one point he shows a stack of newspaper articles, at least a few feet high, concerning coverage of his case. That is about ten percent of the coverage, he says.

When will it end, he asks, an unknowable question. Meanwhile, life for David Drumm has taken on a surreal quality as he waits to know his fate.

We began by discussing why he has moved away from Boston his former home.

NOD: What has your life been like since you came to America.

DD: Well, I came here back in 2009 obviously I had a long history here. I came over here in 1998 to set up the bank in Boston and worked for the bank through to 2003 before going back to Ireland. So we put down some good roots here and made good friends back in that time. So coming back then in the middle of 09 was kind of natural. I had lost my job in Ireland and the prospects of getting a job were pretty dismal. So I came back here and tried to pick up the pieces and rebuild it. Shortly after that lawsuits from the bank came out, that that was the second part of 09 and that has dominated my life since.

NOD: Just in a personal sense, how has it affected you to have this incredible negativity coming at you from Ireland?

DD: It lives with you every day of the week and takes up an inordinate amount of time, at the same time you have to get up in the morning, go to work, earn a living, raise your family, do family things and carry this thing around.

NOD: How has the affect been on your family life in terms of the amount of pressure that you feel?

DD: Extremely difficult because it’s seven days a week, because the time that I have to work on the law suit and everything else is really the time after work, or time at the weekend.

To say the least it’s extremely difficult because I am one of eight children. My mother is still alive, she is at home and has to read this every day and watch it on the nine o’clock news. My siblings don’t see me; they hear me on the phone every now and again but they read it, they have to talk to people every day who say ‘what’s going on with your brother?’

It has been very hard watching over two-to-three years people who knew me for years, who would have been firmly in my camp, so to speak, be worn down by all of the rhetoric, just worn down to the point where, they either believe it or they want to talk about it anymore, friendships kind of get broken up.

We have had to move state because my kids have had journalists at their school, journalists and photographers have camped outside our house for literally days. They have come from Ireland and the UK and they have sat in cars outside our driveway. I have had to run out of the house with my kids hiding in the backseat. I had to send one of my kids one day, up the road on her bicycle to see if they media were waiting at the top of the street for us to come out.

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Nster.com