I aim to be objective but if you don’t like what I’m saying, just switch off

LISTENERS to The Last Word were able to hear this week what the former Anglo Irish Bank boss David Drumm thinks of me. We broadcast an extract from one of the now infamous internal recordings in which he made pointed reference to a newspaper column I had written in June 2008.

Under the newly revised broadcasting code, however, introduced on Monday, it would appear that I’m not allowed to express an opinion about him in return, at least not on my radio programme.

Here’s what I had written about Drumm, a single paragraph in a piece about what I saw as the looming economic crisis – some months before the bank guarantee was introduced – and in which I made reference to an interview that Drumm had given to the Financial Times. “It doesn’t help when David Drumm, the Anglo Irish Bank boss who was paid €5.9m last year, says that the Irish people are realistic and would tighten their belts when they had to. Remember the hypocrisy of Charlie Haughey, the former taoiseach, as he told people they were living beyond their means and needed to rein themselves in?”