Drumm offers to return to Ireland under certain conditions

Former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, David Drumm, is due before a Boston magistrate on Monday after he offered to return to Ireland under certain conditions.

The former banker’s legal representatives have written to the Director of Public Prosecutions proposing that Mr Drumm return to Ireland from the US to face trial on condition he is not jailed upon his arrival home.

A hearing will take place on Monday afternoon (7pm Irish time) at the Massachusetts District Court before Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell, who denied Mr Drumm's release from custody on bail in November.

The 49-year-old Dubliner is wanted in Ireland to face 33 criminal charges relating to transactions carried out while he was chief executive of Anglo. Most of the charges relate to the lending-to-buy-shares scheme designed to prop up Anglo’s share price. Other charges relate to the back-to-back depositing of €7 billion between Irish Life & Permanent and Anglo, allegedly aimed at improving Anglo’s balance sheet.

Drumm has been denied bail twice since his arrest in the US and has spent almost four months in prison, awaiting his extradition hearing on March 1st. He is held at a maximum-security prison, Plymouth County Correctional Facility, south of Boston.

Speaking to the Sunday Business Post, Mr Drumm said he had wished for some time to agree a return to Ireland so that he and his family could "get through this ordeal". He also said he understood the DPP would not agree to his request and would oppose bail.

“Although this is a disappointment and very perplexing, it does not diminish my desire to return to Ireland and deal with these issues rather than litigating them over many years in US,” he said.

He claimed he would have returned to Ireland if the Government had asked him to and had given him certain assurances.

“Politicians were speaking freely about me both inside and outside the [DÁIL]chamber, which is devastating to my basic and fundamental right to a fair hearing,” he said.

“Certain parts of the media were picking up on this and making calls for me to return to Ireland, making any chance that I would be fairly treated impossible. No rational person would respond to this, in the absence of the actual authorities making the demand.”