It took 15 minutes for armed raiders to snatch €2.4 million from Brinks Allied, two weeks after the theft of €2.2 million from Securicor, writes Conor Lally.
One would imagine that little would concentrate the minds of the private cash-in-transit sector more than the loss of almost €5 million in a fortnight.
The robbery of €2.4 million in Dublin yesterday from Brinks Allied, following the theft of €2.2 million from Securicor a fortnight ago, underlines the need for heightened security in a sector very much in trouble.
But while Minister for Justice Michael McDowell plans to deliver a dressing down to private security firms at a crisis summit in Dublin today it will take more than this to address the pattern of armed raids.
Opposition parties last night said they were alarmed that so much money had found its way so easily into the hands of dangerous criminals. This development represented a threat to society.
As Brinks Allied was coming to terms with its embarrassment last night and the Garda and Minister for Justice seethed with rage, no doubt a small group of criminals were toasting their good fortune.
They probably could not believe how a simple coffee stop by a Brinks Allied worker could result in a €2.4 million windfall.
It took less than 15 minutes for the entire operation to unfold.
It was, in anybody's book, a lucrative morning for the raiders.
Their work was done before the morning rush hour even started.
When news of yesterday's raid began to break at around 10am. Mr McDowell was quick out of the blocks. In his mind, lax practices by the security industry were squarely to blame for the latest robbery.
"All robberies should not happen, but this one in particular seems to have had its origin in a basic departure from fundamental standards which I would have expected from a security firm of repute," he said referring to the ill-fated coffee stop in Artane.
Security firms needed to improve their performance. If they could not conduct themselves with the required professionalism they would face losing their licence.
Labour's justice spokesman Joe Costello TD said that while Mr McDowell had threatened to revoke the licences of private security firms the Government had been slow to regulate the sector.
"The Private Security Services Act was on the back burner for four years. And the authority it created won't start issuing licences until October. So the industry is still completely unregulated, there are no licences to revoke."
When such a key industry was neglected for so long it should come as no surprise that problems, such as the recent robberies, would arise.
Fine Gael's spokesman on justice, Jim O'Keeffe, said that while it was clear the private security industry had issues to address Mr McDowell must accept his responsibilities.
The latest robbery was proof that gang crime was on the increase and this needed to be addressed, he said.
Mr O'Keeffe believed this could be done by making more resources available to gardaí and by increasing the size of the force much more quickly than is planned at present, with 2,000 extra recruits due to join the force by 2008.
It should also be a criminal offence to be a member of a crime gang, he said.
For its part the Irish Security Industry Association, the sector's representative body, said the current crisis could only be resolved if its members and gardaí worked together with the financial sector and other stakeholders.
"Our member companies involved will continue to introduce new security systems and measures as part of the overall strategy of defeating this criminal threat," it said in a statement.
The security environment in recent months had worsened considerably, the association said in its statement.
With more than 100 cash-in-transit or ATM robberies or attempted robberies in the last two years, there is no shortage of expertise in this area among the criminal fraternity.