Guarding the Banks? 5 Questions for the Garda commissioner after ATM stakeout
Cian McGrath
It's been too long since there’s been an exciting bank run. The night of August 15th was different though. Whereas the bank runs which became increasingly common through the 00’s and 2010’s were often prompted by hysteria and anxiety about bank closures and loss of access funds, the news that Bank of Ireland maintenance had gone awry ripped around Irish society like wildfire deep into the night.
It was quickly reported that you could withdraw up to €1000 (the daily withdrawal limit from Bank of Ireland) no matter the balance remaining in your current account .The ‘Bonnie and Clyde’-esque feeling of excitement that emerged was a spectacle for sure, a spectacle not least exacerbated by the response from An Garda Síochána, who jumped into action to… block access to ATM machines? It would appear that in response to the fervour, Bank of Ireland briefed the press and perhaps contacted An Garda Siochána who dutifully stepped in to protect the ATMs from our grubby hands. But on what basis?
The complete bankers leave egg on their face and expect us to foot the bill
As reported by Virgin Media reporter Richard Chambers, a statement from AGS clarified that their response was to protect from ‘anti-social behaviour’ occurring at these machines. Videos shared on social media [linked above] quickly put to bed the notion that this bank run was akin to what we might imagine, with the queues seemingly as orderly as any other day, or in some videos, there were very few queues, and little to no anti-social behaviour, instead gardaí blocking access to the teller machines.
It begs the question, what ‘social value’ was this ‘anti-social’ behaviour disturbing? It's difficult to discern from the videos, but it appears that the machines were totally off limits, irrespective of what purpose you sought to use them for. Want to change your pin or request a bank statement on a Tuesday evening? Is that now deemed anti-social behaviour in the eyes of the law?
Just breaking now, at the time of writing, is the first statement from the Gardai which claims;
"On a case by case basis, local decisions were made depending on the public safety and public order presented to members of An Garda Síochána."
Convenient, but unlikely given that Gardaí were manning machines at what appeared to be a national, albeit sporadic, scale.
The Gardaí justified their intervention last night as being to prevent the potential for anti-social behaviour, a concept as spurious as ‘protecting the peace’. Yet, when it comes to the repeated harassment of library workers or refugee centres the Gardaí response is to dutifully oversee the actions of these fascist agitators or go as far as escorting them to facilitate their harassment, as we saw in Fingal Library. It bears repeating that 999 calls go unanswered, evictions are overseen and Garda accountability is ineffective, and faces hostility from both the government and the Garda members association.
5 Questions to be answered
1. Did someone from the Bank of Ireland notify the Gardaí of this, and did the Bank of Ireland request that they take action?
The Garda statements both last night and this morning regarding the actions taken have been met with heavy scepticism.. Bank of Ireland must be fully transparent in reporting how they responded to this error on their part, particularly if they expect the public to have faith in them, or the State to aid them in responding to it, as they seemingly expected last night
2. Was there any notification from Garda HQ to Garda stations about this issue?
PBP TD Paul Murphy has this morning questioned how and why it was that the gardaí were so quick to respond to the needs of Bank of Ireland with such haste, akin to a private security force. The actions of the Gardaí have necessitated ever growing scrutiny as their penchant to respond to the calls from landlords seeking to evict tenants, or banks looking to suppress their customers from accessing ATMs.
Deputy Murphy has also called on the Garda Commissioner to come out and clearly explain the process through which the decision was made that Gardaí would man ATMs on seemingly empty streets.
3. On what basis did they deny access to ATMs?
Accessing ATMs holds a number of purposes, not least withdrawal of cash. What was the reason that the Gardaí were so quick to be seen denying access to the machines? This is particularly of note given that it wasn’t only through ATMs that the error was exploitable, you could just as easily transfer the money from your BOI account to Revolut for example, and the failure to check your balance still existed?
4. How much did this operation cost?
The Garda Commissioner must be honest and transparent in explaining exactly the cost to the public purse incurred by this response from the Gardaí. Given the time at which the error occurred and the seeming scale of the operation, was any Garda overtime and other unexpected costs incurred?
Any attempt to blame the actions of those people who withdrew cash out to be dismissed outright as irrelevant. The failure of Bank of Ireland’s, a private entity, is their failure and thus their responsibility. If they have trouble recouping the money, so be it! Bank of Ireland should foot the bill for any loss caused by their outage, along with the wasted tax-payers money spent on sending members of An Garda Síochána to watch ATM machines.
Bank of Ireland is no doubt reeling in response to the unexpected outflow of cash. Forgive me if I fetch my tiniest violin. Keep in mind, just 16 days ago Bank of Ireland was delighted to report over one billion euro profits, less than 12 months after the State fully transferred the ownership of the bank back into private hands, and five days after announcing a further increase to interest and deposit rates.
5. And one for the government: How can we stop this from happening again?
Ok, so, this one isn’t technically for the Garda commissioner, but for the government.
People Before Profit and its representatives have been consistent in calling for the nationalising of the banking system since the financial crash and have continually called out the government for rewarding corporate greed and ineptness.
Not only has PBP correctly identified the structural issues with privatised banking in Ireland, but also the active failures of the private banks to pass on any benefit from their record profits onto its customers
Just this week Paul Murphy TD called for a “the government [to] introduce a windfall tax on these super profits on their net interest income, as has been done by multiple European countries”. As well as this, PBP has called for a cap on mortgage interest rates at 3% “to stop the rip-off of hard-pressed families.”
Beyond the day-to-day failings of the banks, there is a need for the state to go further if it is truly to end the rip-off bankers, that being the nationalisation of the banking system, and recognition of the need for a public “so it can be utilised as a democratic public utility for society as a whole.”
The government spent taxpayers money to bail out the banks, only to allow them to return to the practices and failings which led to them needing to be bailed out in the first place. The bankers aren’t left longing for the good old days, they’ve been allowed to get right back to work, with no consequences or lessons learned from the crash, conscience-free safe in the knowledge that if needs must, the powers that be will just try to always be there to come to their rescue.