The bankers and the Irish financial crisis is to be dramatised in a major RTE series on television, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

RTE's commission of the four episode series, each of which will be an hour long, has already raised major interest among senior former bankers about the way they will be portrayed and their roles in the crisis.

The drama, which could be screened later this year, could influence public opinion about who bears the greatest responsibility for the economic and financial crisis and may influence the government's proposed banking inquiry which should should be close to reporting its findings by then. It could also affect the opinion poll ratings of the coalition government.

Jane Gogan, commissioning editor of drama at RTE, is believed to have hired leading scriptwriter Rob Heyland, to write the series.

Heyland's credits include Whistleblower, the RTE drama-documentary on the medical practices of disgraced Dr Neary at Drogheda Lourdes Hospital, Kavanagh QC and the recent ITV drama, Ultimate Force.

His credits also include scripting episodes of Foyle's War, Thief Takers and Between the Lines, the 1990s British police drama starring Neil Pearson, about police corruption, which, because of its many bedroom scenes, was popularly known as Between the Sheets. ­

Whether Heyland's drama on the Irish bankers will be as raunchy remains open to question. But Heyland's script, unlike Whistleblower, is likely to highly fictionalise the senior banking players.