Drumm called for ‘war cabinet urgency’

DAVID Drumm wrote to senior Anglo Irish Bank colleagues and suggested they meet to discuss key issues ‘with a war cabinet urgency’ in November 2008, a jury has heard.

‘People who can contribute to strategic discussion, keeping the tone light, but with a war cabinet urgency,’ Mr Drumm wrote.

The former Anglo CEO’s trial has heard he accepts transactions worth €7.2billion between the bank and Irish Life & Permanent took place in 2008, but he disputes they were fraudulent or dishonest. Matt Moran, former chief financial officer at Anglo, was continuing his evidence on day 35 of Mr Drumm’s conspiracy to defraud trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Yesterday, the witness told Mary Rose Gearty SC, prosecuting, that when John Bowe, former head of capital markets at Anglo, told him of the €7.2billion ILP transaction, it was ‘larger than he thought’.

The jury also viewed an email written by Mr Drumm in September 2008, wherein he told Anglo colleagues it was ‘crunch time for us’. ‘A massive push is needed guys,’ he wrote, as liquidity levels at the bank continued to plummet. Mr Moran told the court that he believed ‘a massive push’ referred to the need to urgently reduce the level of lending at the bank.

Mr Drumm, of Skerries, Co. Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with others to defraud depositors and investors at Anglo. He has also pleaded not guilty to false accounting. The trial continues.