Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is meeting representatives of the Irish Bank Officials Association this afternoon over the latest spate of “tiger” kidnappings.
The meeting follows an incident last week in which an armed gang held the family of bank official and former Kilkenny hurler Adrian Ronan at gunpoint last week in a bid to steal €3 million from a Bank of Ireland branch.
The IBOA said last week the availability of cash in financial institutions is one of a number of items that needs to be examined as part of a bid to reduce kidnappings.
General secretary Larry Broderick said the recent spate of attacks is causing “distress, pressure and tension” on bank officials in the front line.
The Republic’s main financial institutions agreed last week to implement a range of security measures to frustrate the kidnappings.
Informed sources told The Irish Timesthat bank chief executives had agreed during a meeting with Mr Ahern and a senior Garda delegation to restrict the amount of cash bank workers can access and to increase the number of people who need to be involved in opening a vault.
During the meeting, Mr Ahern and Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy reiterated the importance of bank officials following existing protocols around gardaí being notified when a hostage-taking robbery was under way long before the bank prepares a ransom for a gang.
The banks were also told to review simple security measures such as time locking systems.