Worried relatives fear for bank employees’ safety

TERRIFIED wives and mothers of bank employees flooded the phone lines of finance representatives yesterday after the latest tiger kidnapping robbery left a family traumatised.

As armed gardaí across the eastern region hunted the gang of robbers behind the north Dublin raid, the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) revealed it was inundated with hundreds of worried callers since details of the €500,000 robbery on Thursday had emerged.

General secretary Larry Broderick explained: “A lot of our members were ringing in very, very concerned and looking for reassurance. After details emerged about the wife and a child being put in a boot, there was a genuine level of concern.’’

During the Balbriggan robbery, masked raiders threatened to shoot a son of assistant bank manager Gerry Smith. After he collected €500,000 in cash for raiders from his Bank of Ireland branch, as ordered, his wife Margaret was found locked in an abandoned BMW while their youngest son Conor had been bungled into the vehicle’s boot.

“Thoughts are starting to creep in, who’s going to be next, are we going to be next. We got hundreds of calls. A number of them which is surprising and which is a new departure (came) from mothers and spouses and partners. This was a new phenomena,” said the union chief.

However, a “paranoid competition” exists between the banking industry preventing them from fully discussing measures to thwart robbers, according to the IBOA.

“There’s a reluctance among the industry to be seen to be working together on a range of issues because of this idea it has to be competitive.”

The trade union, with 20,000 members nationwide, wants stringent legislation punishing tiger kidnappers to be introduced to ward off raiders.

“If people are involved in this, what happens to them, what is the legislative procedure that is in place, what sentencing issues are going to be there? They have to really look at this, the minister has to,” said Mr Broderick.

Despite calls for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to intervene, arranging security talks between gardaí and banks, his office yesterday said the issue was being handled “comprehensively” by Justice Minister Michael McDowell and Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy. The garda chief ruled out any subversive role in the raid yesterday. Bank of Ireland said it would be reviewing security after the robbery on its branch.