Gardaí are not investigating any instances of fraud or theft relating to last week’s Bank of Ireland ATM glitch, with the force viewing it as an entirely civil matter.
A now-resolved glitch in Bank of Ireland’s systems caused widespread disruption to its network last Tuesday and allowed customers to withdraw up to €1,000 cash even if their account was empty.
This resulted in large queues of people at ATMs around the country as some customers sought to take advantage of the error, which made headlines around the world.
Bank of Ireland has declined to say how much money was improperly withdrawn as a result but said the sums would be applied as a debit to customers’ accounts.
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To date there have been no criminal complaints by the bank to gardaí alleging theft or fraud by customers who took advantage of the glitch.
“And we don’t expect any to be honest. It’s viewed as a civil matter and something that should be sorted out between customers and the bank,” said a senior source.
[ Bank outage does little for Ireland’s tarnished imageOpens in new window ]
However, sources said if Bank of Ireland does make any criminal allegation alleging deliberate fraud or theft, gardaí would be obliged to investigate.
“But it would have to be a very widespread and organised attempt to take out large sums of money if it is to have any hope of a criminal charge,” said one garda. “The obstacle is proving someone was taking advantage of the glitch when they withdrew the money. That would be difficult,” said another.
The Garda has faced some criticism over its immediate response to the glitch. In some locations gardaí were deployed to guard ATMs and disperse queues, leading to accusations they were acting as “private security for Bank of Ireland”.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has raised concerns about the response and has questioned whether gardaí carried out a “risk assessment” before deploying units to ATMs.
Garda Headquarters has defended the deployment, saying decisions to station gardaí at ATMs was made at a local level and on a case-by-case basis.
It said gardaí were deployed in response to more than 40 calls across its four Regional Garda Control Rooms from members of the public concerned about crowds gathering around ATMs.
[ Bank of Ireland’s technology failure was no excuse for theftOpens in new window ]
It also received a small number of calls relating to public order incidents and one call relating to an assault and robbery, a spokesman said.
Garda management, along with Ministers and the Policing Authority are understood to be satisfied that the response was proportional and based on public order concerns.
But Minister for Finance Michael McGrath has asked the Central Bank to establish a full account of what happened and what can be done to ensure it does not happen again.
