The availability of cash in financial institutions is one of a number of items that needs to be examined as part of a bid to reduce “tiger kidnappings” of bank workers.
The calls come after an armed gang held the family of bank official and former Kilkenny hurler Adrian Ronan at gunpoint yesterday in a bid to extort €3million from a Bank of Ireland branch in the county.
The general secretary of the Irish Bank Official Association’s (IBOA), Larry Broderick, said the recent spate of attacks is causing “distress, pressure and tension” on bank officials in the front line.
Speaking this morning on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Broderick said that while significant progress had been made to protect workers it is a very "difficult" issue to deal with.
“The bottom line is somebody knocks on your door, you open your door and then you find yourself with a gun to your head. What can one do in relation to a situation like that and then they come in and take your spouse, partner, children, - the most distressing thing of all is children are now being used in these situations,” he said.
“Bank officials don’t know when they go home in the evening if they have someone following them, checking their ordinary details, monitoring their progress with a view to picking them up.
“I’m not exaggerating…this is what is happening.”
Mr Broderick said the IBOA is working with the Garda and banking institutions and have called for a meeting with Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern to reduce the attacks.
Mr Ahern and Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy are to meet the chief executives of the main banks tomorrow.
The talks, which were planned before yesterday’s events, are aimed at stressing to the banks the importance of alerting gardaí when tiger raids are under way rather than paying ransoms to gangs first.
