DAVID DRUMM

In newspaper parlance, the “get” of the week is The Sunday Independent interview with former Anglo Irish Bank chief David Drumm, who filed for bankruptcy in Massachusetts last week. Normally the chances of anyone in this position granting an interview is slim to none (just ask Charlie Bird after his unsuccessful attempt to doorstep Mr Drumm at his Cape Cod mansion earlier this year).

However, Ronald Quinlan managed to “get” the story and Drumm had some very interesting things to say when he decided to pick up the phone from Boston. The interview will certainly make for some uncomfortable reading for those in power.

“I’m not that far from understanding what’s going on in peoples’ lives. I’m sick to my stomach, frankly, about what’s happened to our country. I’m sick to my stomach about what’s happened to a bank which for 20 years did so well and contributed to the country in the way it did,” he said. “It’s a terrible calamity and a poster child for everything that’s happened to our country and I have to live with that every day. But I genuinely am horrified by what has happened.”

Drumm said he took full responsibility but he and others had acted at all times with the full knowledge of the “political bosses”, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator.