Dear David Drumm, Man up and face the people…..

We have all heard it said of someone that ‘That fella doesn’t know when to shut up’. Most of the time it can be in jest or exasperation. Other times it is very wise advice. David Drumm knows when he wants to shut up, but then at times displays an inability to accept what he did and not make a bad situation worse.

Drumm could not shut up when he was on a phone. He was a big shot, a hot shot a tough guy. He could see no fault in himself, but he could identify where everyone else was wrong. Today David Drumm continues to give interviews and talk from the safety of the USA about what he wants to see happen and who he wants to answer questions.

We have news for you David. You are not a hotshot anymore. You took a cowards way out and with it went every iota of public sympathy for the position you find yourself in. Now, we know you think the Irish people are thick. You displayed that time and time again. We know that you believed all those dealing with you were slower than you or not quite as smart. We know you think the general public don’t deserve respect and don’t understand what’s going on. We know that, but the problem is, that in all of this, as in so much else, you are wrong.

The Irish public know exactly who they want answers from. Your list of 8 people is of no consequence. The Irish public know well that they want answers from the politicians who served at the time. Their names will never be worth anything until they face those questions. We are well capable of identifying the failures of the Central bank and the Regulator and we know full well that they have a serious case to answer. That is a matter for us, the Irish people.

You, David Drumm, have only one concern in our mind. That is to answer the questions we have of you. Not to pick and choose your interviews and spout about who else you think is to blame, but to answer the hard questions about what you did. A man who values his name, a man who respects his country and its people, is never afraid to face the consequences. You, David Drumm, are certainly no man at all. You hide from questions and consequences, you want to tell your side of the story but you don’t want to face what you did. Until you do that, you should leave the questioning of everyone else to the Irish people and start focussing on yourself.

In the end, we know you are afraid of the legal issues, afraid of being a scapegoat, afraid of public anger, afraid of losing what you have, afraid, afraid, afraid. Aside from all the legal questions that you fear so much, most of us have a very simple question. Do you sleep at night? Do you feel proud of your career or are you curled up and consumed with the kind of shame that would befit someone in your position? You ran a bank, you played hard and fast with the rules, you were, it must be said, incompetent. You accepted plaudits and awards but were genuinely incapable of seeing where it could go wrong. You still are. You still think it was all just a crisis of confidence and markets without accepting that the bank had no clothes and you couldn’t see that.

You picked ‘Figures out of your arse’ when it was plain to see that the situation was becoming terminal. You approached other banks and secured other loans to try hide the hole and to get through another few days. You tried to flog your bank; you tried to get anybody and everybody on the hook for the errors you made. Anglo never attempted to come clean, to face up to the problem and admit they had made a huge error and were now gone. They never attempted to get to the bottom of what the owed and it took months after a takeover by the state to even find a figure.

Irish Banks have a lot to answer for. AIB and BOI and Irish Nationwide, Irish Permanent and EBS all had to be saved by the Irish taxpayer. They all landed us where we are, but Anglo was the cherry on top. Lauded for years by those in business and in politics it was a house built on sand. Anglo caused the single biggest piece of damage to the state that we have ever witnessed from a single institution. What we want to know, David Drumm, is how you feel. What do you say to the elderly people who are having care workers taken from them? To the children who will have special needs education cut, to the parents who have income slashed and face an empty fridge? To those who lost jobs and line the dole queues while your mates who still work in the banks threaten to repossess their homes? That is the legacy your career at Anglo left us. Deep down we know you think that’s not your fault, well, it’s not solely your fault that’s true. But whatever decisions are taken had to be done because you ran up a debt and couldn’t see the flaws in your own bank and couldn’t face them. Therefore you must accept the blame.

It is not good enough to sit in America, billing yourself out as a financial consultant, feeling hard done by. You do not have that right, nor does anyone in banks, government or politics who walked away from this crash without having to suffer what ordinary people have suffered. That is the price you pay. That is the price you should pay, but you won’t. You will feel victimised and say none of it was your fault. So to be honest, David Drumm, either come home and face the people, show your humility and your shame, or shut up until the day we somehow catch up with you and get those answers.

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