David Drumm's Interview with Niall O'Dowd

On the wonderful website The Irish Economy, I made a number of contributions in the Comments section following a post on the above subject. A commenter called Bklyn_rntr responded to me (and to others) on November 28th last and again early on the following day. As the comments to the post in question had already gone on for too long, I promised to respond here and I belatedly do so now.

I shall address his points in the order in which they were made.

...Anglo had only one reasonably effective system for managing risk and that was to insist that loans granted MUST be deposited with the bank. Indeed, a minimum deposit was required or the loan would become callable. In 2008, apparently, when Lenihan was presented with a series of choices surrounding the guarantee, he chose to guarantee everything AND to allow deposits to be withdrawn, including those subject to the minimum deposit requirement.

I don't believe that when considering, and deciding upon, the Guarantee, the then Minister or anyone involved would - even if they knew about them, which I also doubt - have had the position of such security deposits in mind. If the suggestion is that Anglo management later released such security without repayment of the loans, then I will await sight of the evidence that this happened before commenting.

...if you want to demonstrate your superior legal skills by offering a definition of treason, feel free. I don’t pretend to have training here. However a dictionary says it is acting to weaken or harm your state or sovereign or offering help or succor to your country’s enemies. Well, IMHO, foisting what were clearly private sector losses onto the sovereign in order to protect the banks of Germany and France, was an act that weakened Ireland.

Compliment acknowledged, but I don't think that it requires legal training to appreciate the fact that to speak of treason is out of place here. Indeed, working out what constitutes the offence in the modern world caused grave difficulty as far back as 1916, when Roger Casement ended up being "hanged by a comma".

If a country is at war with another, someone who aids the enemy might be reasonably described as a traitor. At a stretch, one might also so refer to someone who works to replace, by force, our democratic constitutional arrangements with rule by one man, or by a small group, accountable to no electorate.

In both cases, the intention of the traitor to actually bring about the bad results would have to be an essential ingredient of the offence. One is not validly called a murderer automatically just because one is the cause of someone's death. It can be an accident.

I might agree with the opinion that the actions of many people - from all walks of life, not merely politicians and bankers - have, with the benefit of hindsight, damaged our state. Unless it can be shown that they did so with that intention, it is not just inaccurate but ludicrous to speak of what they did as criminal in any sense, never mind treason. And we are not at war.

Of course, I realise that many serious people, not excluding better lawyers than I, will speak in those terms in informal social encounters, but they will not do so in a serious context such as the present one.

If anyone really believes that people like Seán FitzPatrick, David Drumm or Brian Cowen took the disastrous decisions that they did with the intention that they would damage Ireland and/or aid the country's enemies, then it is long past time for evidence of such intentions to be produced. I have seen nothing which has even tended to constitute such evidence, and those who keep muttering about it are, it seems to me, living in a fantasy.

...it is shocking to think that concealed management loans, back handers, irresponsible lending practices, nefarious share support schemes were, and I suppose are still, legal...

None of those things have ever been or are "legal". (It might be useful to know, though, whether we share the same understanding of the terms "irresponsible" and "back-handers"). I don't understand Sarah Carey to suggest that she disagrees. What I understand her to be saying is that, because so many of the crimes alleged happened with the apparent connivance of the authorities, the miscreants can't and won't be prosecuted.

The world still spins on its axis in the same way, and accordingly I disagree with Sarah, but she has a valid point. Just ask yourself if a jury would convict Willie McAteer if they believe - I am not sure that I do - that he was actively encouraged ("Fair play to you,Willie") by the Financial Regulator to "window-dress" Anglo's balance sheet. And would a jury convict Kevin Cardiff of conspiracy if he persuaded the jury members that he sincerely believed that the interests of the State required him to do what he did ?

And that those who ran the country into the ground (public and private sector) are ... given an opportunity to state their side of the story to an obviously sympathetic journalist is shocking to me.

Sigh.

How are we to judge whether these people are really responsible if we object to hearing their side of the story ? Even if some issues of their responsibility may be clear by now, there is still a lot that they can explain. I would like to hear them do so.

In this case, a provocative interview with one of the most spineless, grasping thieves, and I will say it again, a traitor to boot is really too much to bear

Contact me if you have the evidence for those accusations, and I will help you to bring a prosecution yourself, if it can be done. I will not be holding my breath while I wait.

And "what about" sentences won’t do to justify why NOBODY, including this traitor, has been called to account

There haven't been any "what about" arguments made against your position, as far as I can see.

(By the way, I also participated starting here in the discussion about the same interview on the rather good Namawinelake website).