A clean sweep for Drumm in the ’Joy... and €2 wages a day
Convicted banker is gainfully employed and nearly crossed paths with a Minister
CONVICTED banker David Drumm has secured his first job behind bars. After cleaning up the balance sheet of Anglo Irish Bank to make it appear healthier than it was, he now spends his days cleaning up his new home at Mountjoy Prison.
The former bank boss has secured a job sweeping the floors close to his cell on the C base landing. During one of his first days on duty this week, he came almost face-to-face with Drugs Minister Catherine Byrne.
A source said: ‘The Minister was in the prison last week on an official visit and she and David Drumm were on the same landing at the same time. She was on one side of the landing and he was at the other end sweeping the floor.
‘They didn’t talk and I’d be surprised if the Minister even recognised him. Like all the other inmates he is wearing shorts because the weather is so good.
‘It’s very hot in Mountjoy at the moment so it’s not too pleasant. David Drumm is on what they call an enhanced regime and he’s earning about €2 to €2.50 a day at his new job.
‘But if he wants to get an even better job in the kitchen, the laundry or the bakery, he will have to be transferred to the St Pat’s part of the prison where there is less security and the atmosphere is more relaxed.
‘It’s hard to know at this stage when he could get a transfer. But he is settling in and just getting on with it. There’s not a bother on him, he seems happy out.’
Meanwhile, Ms Byrne’s spokeswoman said she visited the prison to learn about its drug treatment programme. ‘She visited the medical unit and met individuals going through treatment and rehabilitation.’
She also met the governor and rehabilitation director in a twohour visit that ‘had been in her diary for a number of months’, said her spokeswoman. ‘She was aware that Mr David Drumm was in the prison but did not see him or meet him.’
A week after he was given a six-year sentence for conspiracy to commit a €7.2bn fraud and for false accounting, Drumm pleaded guilty on Friday to giving illegal loans to prominent businessmen.
This second trial was due in October and was to examine how illegal loans were given to developers known as The Maple 10 to buy shares in the doomed bank. But following Drumm’s guilty plea, it will not go ahead. He will be sentenced on July 9.
He is expected to serve most of his sentence in Mountjoy, where a strict regime applies. In order to move he must first apply, then wait for an available space. There is already a lengthy list of prisoners waiting for transfer to the more sought-after open-style prisons and Drumm can not jump the queue.
Meanwhile, it has emerged he has listed his retired hairdresser mother Mary, not his wife Lorraine, as his next of kin.
He spent some of his last hours as a free man relaxing over a few quiet pints at a pub in his hometown of Skerries in north Co. Dublin. It is believed the excursion was one of the few times he ventured out of the mortgage-free luxury seafront home he shares with his wife.
According to the public property register the house at Barnageeragh Cove, in Skerries, was bought in August 2016 for €418,502 and Lorraine Drumm was registered as the full owner in May of last year. She was not in court during his trial or when he was led away to prison.
She probably didn’t know him in his shorts