Drumm: FitzPatrick controlled Anglo to make sure he got what he wanted

FORMER Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm believes he got the job because he would provide the least resistance to then bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick.

Mr Drumm was Anglo’s chief executive when it had to be rescued by the Government at a cost of €30 billion to the Irish taxpayer.

In an interview in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post, Mr Drumm painted a picture to journalist Niall O’Dowd of Mr FitzPatrick as extremely controlling.

Asked, if he felt he was given the post because he was the least experienced and Mr FitzPatrick would be able to control him, Mr Drumm responded: “I am pretty sure I was his candidate, he thought I could do the job. I worked for the bank for many years and done a lot of good things in the bank for many years but, as the youngest person there, I was the likely person who would give the least resistance.”

Mr Drumm said Mr FitzPatrick was a very, very powerful person

“He was a controlling person not just of the executives, but of the non-executives. He ran the board in a highly premeditated, controlled manner. There were meetings before board meetings to make sure he got what he wanted.”

Mr Drumm said while he would like at some stage to return to Ireland he did not think he would get fair play here if he did.

“I would not be treated fairly. I spent 16 years in the bank. I was beyond loyal to that bank, maybe too loyal, and a country that I believed in 100%, marketed 100% as I was marketing the bank. I was marketing the country, everywhere I went.

“Now the way I am being depicted by that country, by the country’s media, or participants, is completely and utterly unfair. I am here trying to make a living and raise my family, which I am entitled to do,” he said.

“Why would I go somewhere which has stated, politicians, senior ministers and even High Court judges, have more or less stated there is a witch hunt on and we are going to get him. Why would somebody put their family at risk by signing up for that,” he said in the interview.

Mr Drumm disclosed that he now has a full-time job in the US and has a full employment visa which entitles him to live in the US.