Banks ‘pay less than half of armed escort costs’

BANKS contributed less than half of the €40 million cost of nearly 10,000 cash deliveries escorted by gardaí and the Defence Forces over a four year period, figures showed yesterday.

Figures supplied by the departments of defence and justice reveal that the banking sector contributed €17m of the total cost to the end of 2003.

Over the same period, the cost to the Defence Forces was nearly €15m while the gardaí paid €8.5m.

At a meeting next week with the Defence Minister Willie O’Dea, the banking sector will be asked to pay more towards the cost of cash escorts.

The Irish Bankers Federation will argue that the banks are not the only ones to benefit from the service and will remind the minister the sector already pays €1.4bn in taxes and a unique €100m levy.

Felix O’Regan, the IBF spokesman, added that it was “cock-eyed” of the minister to link the cash escort service to bank profits. By the same argument, a profitable business on the same street as a non-profitable one should pay more for services, such as waste collection, he said.

It’s estimated banks make profits of around €3bn every year.

Mr O’Dea has signalled he is unhappy at the Defence Forces paying nearly €4m a year towards the cost of escorts.

The Department of Justice renegotiated the cost to the gardaí with banks agreeing to triple their annual contribution from just under €1m to €3m in 2003. The total is €3.2m. In 2003, banks paid €2.86m of the total Defence Forces bill of €6.64m.

Mr O’Dea has warned he would ask the Department of Finance to impose a levy on the banks if they do not agree to pay more.

Cash escorts began in the early 1980s in response to attacks on vans by subversives. While this threat has diminished, robberies of cash in transit continue.

“These escorts contribute to a safe and secure environment which banks, like all other tax paying businesses are entitled to expect,” the IBF said in a statement issued this week.

The IBF also argued that the State is one of the principal generators of cash and that a significant proportion of the cash transported around the country goes directly from the Central Bank to An Post.