Why the €2.7m Brinks heist blame game is a major cop-out
Within hours of the raid, the minister had already made up his mind about the most expensive coffee break since coffee was discovered, and shared his insight with us on national television.
He blamed it on the security industry and a “procedural lapse”, although I’m fairly sure a successful prosecution has never been brought against such a suspect.
However, a subsequent Department of Justice statement noted that the minister felt that the security industry had let down the wider community through an apparent procedural lapse which had enabled criminals to steal a significant amount of money.
Mr McDowell may well have felt let down, but somehow I doubt the wider community took it quite so personally.
What the wider community felt, I venture to suggest, was a certain amount of bewilderment as to how so much money was even allowed to leave the Brinks depot without armed protection by the gardaí and army.
Anyway, given that there are about 20,000 full-time and part-time workers employed in the security industry, it’s not an exaggeration to describe the minister’s conclusion as a sweeping statement.
From the odd Brinks security van I’ve seen, it would be impossible to get 20,000 people into it, although, apparently, it was relatively easy to get €2.7m out of one.
Shortly after this latest security van heist, the gardaí, among other things, started looking for a white van. It’s a remarkable feature of serious crime in this country that, inevitably, there’s always a white van that the gardaí are looking for.
In fact, it has become such standard procedure, it’s a wonder the gardaí have not got a list of all white van owners on PULSE whose whereabouts they could check on any given day of any robbery.
It would surely be a relief to the general public, who are constantly being asked to keep an eye out for one.
Possibly it’s naive on my part, but I was always under the impression that when large sums of money are being transported around the country, there is always a garda and army escort.
But no. Only one-in-10 deliveries receives an escort, so the odds are loaded in favour of robbers, even without the fortuitous coffee break.
It’s a comment on the trustworthiness of the people along the few miles’ stretch into the city that nobody thought for a moment that there was the slightest risk that the security van would be robbed.
Now, we know differently.
Not that I’m suggesting for a moment that anyone from Coolock was implicated.
In any case, the 20,000 suspects in the security industry are more than enough for the gardaí to be getting on with, without me adding the population of Coolock.
WHILE the gardaí and the army lads were waiting at the Spire, or wherever, for the van to show up with the cash, the crew in the van decided to take a coffee break and wheeled into a handy Maxol filling station somewhere in Coolock. Some wag will probably rechristen it the Maxwell station.
Possibly, that was not a good idea but then nobody told them to skip the coffee, and in any case the fact that there was no need for an escort at that stage meant they must have felt pretty safe.
And they were safe - until the fellow with the gun showed up and that was the end of the coffee break.
It was also the end of the €2.7m.
It must be acknowledged that Plan A was to originally drive an empty security van into Dublin that morning to collect the money.
But because the bank wouldn’t pay staff to come in early that morning, the money was collected the previous night and brought to the Brinks depot.
No wonder a gardaí source described the whole episode as a “complete joke”.
Eventually, the news percolated to the boys at the Spike.
The robbery, obviously, was better planned than the transit of the money and it was a classic example of criminality, which the minister thinks happens only in Northern Ireland.
Instead of blaming the usual suspects - the IRA or Sinn Féin, or both - he immediately targeted the “procedural lapse” in the security industry.
There was no mention of the gardaí or the army and why they were in the city centre while the dosh was disappearing from the back of the van almost as fast as a TD’s expenses.
Afterward, the minister said: “The indications are that the vehicle, which had a large sum of money in it, went into a service station for a purpose which had nothing to do with the delivery or receipt of money.
“One of the staff,” he continued, “got out of the vehicle and, I understand, was purchasing coffee. The raid took place at that point. That is just not acceptable in this day and age.”
Whether purchasing the coffee or the raid was unacceptable in this day and age, he did not make clear.
Neither did he say in what day or age such a raid might possibly be acceptable.
A statement from the gardaí said the van was not due to be under escort from the depot or at the time of the robbery.
“As per standing arrangements, the security vehicle was due to rendezvous later with a garda/army escort at a location in the city centre.
“The garda/army escort was in place at the agreed location and awaiting the arrival of the security vehicle,” the statement said.
So, the gardaí and the army were stood up and the baddies got the money.
Pardon the pun, but that is nothing short of a major cop-out. It beggars belief that the gardaí, the primary security force in the State, did not insist that such a large sum of money be given an armed escort along all stages of the route.
Kevin McMahon, the secretary of SIPTU’s security services branch, was right to reject the minister’s suggestion that the raid was caused by a lapse on the part of the crew of the security van.
This was the second such serious raid from security vans in two weeks in north Dublin. The gardaí needn’t bother looking up the trees there for any clues.
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