Whirlwind week as Drumm comes home to face fraud charges

It has been a whirlwind week for former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm. After five months spent in American jails and years refusing to come back to Ireland to answer questions from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement about his stewardship of the bank, Drumm arrived into Dublin Airport on Monday morning at 5.30am following his extradition from the US.

At 6.35am, officers at Ballymun Garda station began charging him with 33 counts of alleged fraud and false accounting. Drumm made no reply to the charges.

Some four hours later, he was in the Dublin District Court seeking bail from Judge Michael Walsh. The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed bail on the basis that he was a "serious flight risk", given the seriousness of the alleged offences.

Drumm once dined at the corporate top table, rubbing shoulders with the business and political elite; this week he found himself sharing court time with a motley crew of petty thieves and rogues.

He spent Monday night in Cloverhill Prison while issues around his bail conditions were ironed out. At lunchtime on Tuesday, he emerged into the foyer of the Criminal Courts of Justice building into the warm embrace of siblings and his mother-in-law and father-in-law, Georgina and Danny O’Farrell, who between them had provided a surety to the court of €100,000 to secure his bail.

Drumm appeared genuinely emotional at his release. He had a short meeting with his legal team before emerging from the building to a posse of photographers and television cameras who crowded his every step to an awaiting black Volkswagen Passat. He was driven away and will stay in Skerries while he awaits trial.

This saga effectively started when Drumm resigned as chief executive of of Anglo Irish in December 2008. The bank was nationalised the following month, with Drumm making the decision to emigrate to Boston in June 2009. He returned twice later that year for “business matters”, but he didn’t set foot again in Ireland thereafter until this week.

On Monday, the court heard that Anglo’s offices were raided by the Garda fraud unit in February 2009 on foot of a complaint by the financial regulator. It would be another year before the authorities here sought to interview Drumm about his role in the collapse of the bank.

In opposing Drumm’s bail, counsel for the DPP told the court that he had consistently frustrated attempts by the authorities here to interview him in relation to Anglo. He had fought “tooth and claw” to resist returning to Ireland and only agreed to come home when he was twice denied bail by US courts to his incarceration while awaiting his extradition proceedings. It was not a voluntary return in “any meaningful sense”, the court was told.

Judge Walsh also heard that in 2010, Drumm had sought assurances from the Garda that he would not be arrested if he returned to Dublin for questioning.

The former head of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Paul Appleby, who attended the court hearing this week, also sought to interview Mr Drumm in 2010. November 15th that year was provisionally set aside for the interview but Drumm's application for bankruptcy in October 2010 put paid to any potential meeting.

In reply in court, Michael Staines, Drumm's solicitor, questioned why gardaí had not sought to interview Drumm in 2009 when he was in Ireland. He also reminded the court that there was no obligation on Drumm to co-operate with the Garda investigation, especially as he was in civil litigation with his former employer in 2010.

Extradition

Staines also questioned the long gaps between correspondence from the Irish authorities. He cited an 18-month gap in contact before the decision to seek his extradition in July 2014. “Why not make one more call, send one more email?” Staines asked of the detective Garda sergeant in the witness box.

Staines noted that if Drumm had wanted to go on the run from the Irish authorities, he could have driven “two hours up the road” to Canada, which does not have an extradition treaty with Ireland. Instead, he remained in Boston with his family even though it was revealed in the media in August 2014 that his extradition was being sought by the State.

Staines also challenged the assertion that Drumm’s ties to Ireland were “tenuous”. He cited 47 relatives living here, of whom four were willing to “put their houses on the line” to support his bail application.

In approving his bail, Judge Walsh noted that Drumm had a constitutional right to a presumption of innocence and he was entitled to bail unless the prosecution could put forward a strong case.

Drumm has been charged in connection with the €7.2 billion in back-to-back deposits between Anglo and Irish Life & Permanent in 2008.

He also faces multiple charges in connection with loans given to a group 10 investors and members of Seán Quinn’s family relating to attempts by Anglo to unwind Quinn’s large position in the bank in 2008. Some of the charges carry maximum terms of up to 10 years.

Drumm’s freedom comes at a price. He was required to lodge €50,000 with the court and will have to sign on twice daily at Balbriggan Garda station. He has surrendered his passport and has agreed not to apply for a new one or to leave the State. However a request from the DPP that he not be allowed to travel outside Co Dublin was rejected by the judge.

It is not clear when Drumm’s trial – there could be more than one – will come to court but when it does, it is certain to be incredibly complex. A date from mid-2017 onwards is likely.

Other Anglo trials must be heard first, including the one currently under way involving Drumm's former colleagues Willie McAteer and John Bowe and one-time Irish Life & Permanent executives, Denis Casey and Peter Fitzpatrick.

There are two books of evidence, millions of documents and 400 hours of audio material involved. The court was told this week that between 100 and 120 witnesses could be called by the prosecution.

In the meantime, Drumm plans to seek employment here while his wife will sell their house in Boston and return to live in Ireland permanently from the middle of this year.

Drumm has a landmark birthday on November 7th when he will turn 50. Given the dark cloud that hangs over him, the celebrations will no doubt be muted. However events in court this week mean he should at least be able to mark it in the company of his family.