It is unacceptable that financial institutions only pay 43 per cent of the Defence Forces' costs for Army cash escorts, Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea told the Dáil.
The Minister, who has been in "extensive negotiations" with financial institutions over the price of such escorts said "I am not asking the banks for the full cost of the cash escorts" because 20 per cent related to the Post Office and institutions like the Central Bank. "In effect I am asking the banks to pay for what they are getting," he said, adding that he had told them he wanted the matter finalised within the next fortnight.
Labour's defence spokesman Joe Sherlock - who raised the issue during Question Time - had asked if it was acceptable that financial institutions "which make annual profits of billions of euro every year - last year AIB made €1.4 billion in profits - should effectively ask taxpayers to subsidise the provision of escorts for them". He pointed out that there had never been a successful robbery of a cash consignment under Army escort.
"Given that, is it not reasonable that financial institutions would pay the full price for the provision of such escorts."
The Minister highlighted some of the points the banks had made in negotiations "such as that they are contributing a great deal in taxes to the Revenue. They also make the point that there is an extra cost entailed when the Army is involved in cash escorts, such as subsistence allowances, security duty allowances, the cost of transport.
"They further stated that even today the amount they are paying covers that extra cost, and we would be meeting the basic wages anyway."
Mr O'Dea pointed out that in 1995 €2.86 million was set as the amount to be paid by the banks for Army escorts, and this figure had not changed.
That covered 72 per cent of costs then, but in real terms it was now only worth 43 per cent of total costs. He added that in 2003, the latest year for which full figures were available, Defence Forces' costs were €6.6 million including pay allowances, transport and aerial surveillance.
This related to 2,335 escorts, about 80 per cent of which covered deliveries to banks.
The Minister added that in the first nine months of last year, about 1,825 escorts took place and in any given month about 1,592 "Army man-days" were spent on such escorts.
