The executive director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties Liam Herrick has queried what risk assessment was carried out, if any, by gardaí who attended at ATMs around the country on Tuesday night following a glitch in the Bank of Ireland online banking system.
If the gardaí were involved in an operation that restricted people’s rights and movements and ability to access finance, then they must have a clear legal basis to do so, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“They must be clear about what that basis is and be transparent about it. So what the garda statement is saying is that this was a public order operation, that they received information that there was a risk of a public order problem, and they responded to it.
“Now if that is the case, then I think it needs to be assessed and compared with the general public concern at the moment about a real problem of an unresponsiveness and an ineffectual response to serious public order issues in Dublin city in particular. So when the guards are saying that they received a number of calls from members of the public and then deployed a significant number of guards to engage in an operation, what was the risk assessment?
"And did it require the deployment of guards directly to the streets? Because what often happens with public order operations is that the guards may have a reserve amount of guards in place in case a problem arises, because it's not apparent any serious public order issues did actually play out.”
Mr Herrick said that the garda statement did not refer to phone calls between Bank of Ireland and An Garda Síochána. Bank of Ireland had stated that they did not request assistance.
It was an issue of concern that there had been images on social media of gardaí blocking people from accessing ATMs with no clear indication of on what legal basis that decision was made.
There was a possibility that gardaí were being drawn into a civil law matter, that had happened previously during evictions for private landlords, added Mr Herrick.
The garda statement was unsatisfactory, so it would be helpful if the Garda Commissioner provided more information particularly about any risk assessment, he said. Mr Herrick also said it was a matter for the Policing Authority.
“We need a full report of exactly what happened here. We don't even know, for example, from Bank of Ireland how much money was withdrawn illegitimately in the first place.
"But I think there is a wider concern here about the transparency around policing and the legal basis for the guards being involved in civil matters. That's the context and the background here. And in that context, I think the public have legitimate concerns about why so many guards were deployed in this situation.”
