RTÉ's Washington Correspondent Richard Downes blogs ahead of his Prime Time report tonight:
The outer reaches of Cape Cod are really stunning. If you think of the wilder and more beautiful parts of the Cork and Kerry peninsulas and add at least two hundred years of more or less unbroken economic growth, you get some idea of how sumptuous and comfortable the Cape can be. You are only an hour from Boston.
The Belle Haven are of Greenwich Connecticut is similarly beautiful. Diana Ross has a house there. it's where those who have made billions on Wall Street go when they want an easier life. This is not so much millionaire's row as billionaire's row. It's still only an hour from the bright lights of Manhattan.
Both these places have attracted Irish people for generations. But the latest two immigrants have been attracting a whole new level of attention.
Sean Dunne is best known for spending hundreds of millions of euro on property in Dublin at the height of the property bubble. He is now active in Connecticut and has listed Belle Haven as his home address on a number of key commercial filings. Those filings reveal many interesting things about this titan of the Irish property market who is setting up new operations in America. It's not all plain sailing. Dunne has fallen foul of his neighbors and his wife has run into serious trouble with her lawyer.
David Drumm has filed for bankruptcy. He used to run Anglo Irish Bank but that job was gone as the bank's disastrous lending policies brought it to ground. Transplanted to Cape Cod, Drumm's past followed him and despite the Range Rovers and high credit card spending, he was forced into bankruptcy. His biggest creditor is Anglo Irish Bank. He owes them about 8 million euro. That was money he borrowed to buy shares in Anglo. We show the loan documents which show that the loan was secured only on the shares themselves. For whatever reason, Drumm later put himself on the hook for the whole eight million. Some bankruptcy lawyers say he has a very good chance of flying through this one and coming out the other end without debt. But then of course, there's the small matter of the ongoing Garda investigation into the goings on at Anglo. That still hasn't come to any conclusion yet.
For Sean Dunne and David Drumm, America offers a way out of problems back home. They are both here with a view to investing in the United States. While many people back home struggle with negative equity and overwhelming debts, both have a second chance.
Richard Downes
