Bank staff and their families living in fear, garda chief told

GARDA Commissioner Noel Conroy was told yesterday that bank staff and their families were living in fear because they were seen as “soft targets” for criminal gangs.

The Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) met the garda chief as new legislation was published allowing suspects in tiger kidnappings to be held for up to seven days. The meeting with the IBOA delegation centred on the safety of workers and a “culture of fear” that now prevails among bank employees.

Speaking after the meeting, IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick said: “It provided us with an opportunity to brief the Commissioner in detail on staff concerns and fears over recent events and highlight directly to the Commissioner what staff and their families are saying to us.

“It is clear to IBOA that there is an increasing trend, whereby bank staff are regarded as particularly vulnerable and viewed as a ‘soft-target’ by criminal gangs and this has led to many staff going to work in fear for their health and safety and that of their families.”

Spouses and relatives of bank workers recently flooded the IBOA’s phonelines, querying what action to take in the event of kidnappings.

Criminals operating “tiger” kidnappings — where an employee or their family member is abducted — targeted three places of work in Dublin last November. By February this year, some four such kidnappings occurred over one month.

One criminal gang were chased by gardaí across several counties. During the Balbriggan Bank of Ireland raid, 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.

The severity of threats to staff led to the priority meeting with Mr Conroy, the first of its kind for the IBOA with the Commissioner over the spate of kidnappings.

“The IBOA believe there is an urgent need to address this issue and we have called for further dialogue involving the gardaí, Department of Justice, banking and security industry as well as staff representatives to monitor developments in the general area of security within the Financial Services Sector,” added the banking union yesterday.

Issues raised with the Commissioner yesterday included safety not only in the workplace but at the homes of employees. New types of technology for security were mentioned. Decreasing staff ratios in banks and financial institutions were also raised. Specific, but sensitive, issues about keyholders also came up for mention.

The IBOA, who have over 21,000 members, will prioritise these security issues at its biannual conference, scheduled to take place in Dublin on April 20 and 21 next.