THE HEADS of the Republic's main financial institutions have agreed to implement a range of security measures to frustrate so- called "tiger" kidnappings following talks with Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and a senior Garda delegation.

Informed sources told The Irish Times the key matter that arose at yesterday's meeting was an agreement by bank chief executives to restrict the amount of cash bank workers can access and to increase the number of people who need to be involved in opening a vault.

"The feeling is that the more permissions are needed the harder it will be for bank workers to get ransoms for gangs quickly, and this will ultimately deter the gangs," said one source.

Other sources said the ability of a junior bank worker to take a ransom of over [euro]7 million from the Bank of Ireland in College Green, Dublin, in February was greeted with "incredulity" in Garda and Government circles.

Mr Ahern and Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy yesterday reiterated the importance of bank officials following existing protocols around gardai being notified when a hostage-taking robbery was under way long before the bank prepares a ransom for a gang.

"It was made clear that under no circumstances is a ransom to leave a bank if the gardai are not involved," said a well-placed source.

The banks have also been told to review simple security measures such as time locking systems.

Mr Ahern said he had impressed upon the senior bank officials that robberies were taking place because criminals knew even junior bank workers could access large sums of money in branches very quickly.

"The banks are going to have to look at situations where their own officials are not put into circumstances where there is available cash and they are put under duress."

He had relayed the concerns of the Government relating to recent robberies in which vast sums had made their way into the hands of gangland figures.

He would hold further talks next week with the credit unions, the Irish Banking Federation and the Irish Bank Officials Association to discuss staff safety and security procedures.

Yesterday's talks were arranged before the kidnapping of Bank of Ireland official Adrian Ronan and his family in Kilkenny on Tuesday by a gang trying to rob [euro]3 million.

Gardai are continuing their investigation into that incident. However, while the Ronan family has been able to tell officers the gang spoke with Dublin accents, no clear suspects have emerged.

The gang broke into the Ronans' home at Ballycallan at 6.15am. They took Mary Ronan away and told her husband, a former Kilkenny hurler, that she would only be freed unharmed if he got [euro]3 million from the Kilkenny city branch where he worked.

When Mr Ronan went to the branch he could only get about [euro]200,000. When he relayed this to the gang via mobile phone they became incensed but abandoned the robbery a short time later.

A shot was fired over Mrs Ronan's head during the incident. Both she and her husband were threatened they would be kneecapped. The couple's three children, all aged under 10 years, were traumatised by the attack.

Originally published by CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent.

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