Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern appears to have backed down over his suggestion to ask banks to introduce charges on ATM withdrawals after the move was widely criticised.
Mr Ahern suggested the move yesterday in the wake of the kidnapping of a bank manager’s wife, who was held hostage by an armed gang until her husband handed over €300,000 from the AIB branch where he works.
Mr Ahern said although the banks, bank workers and the gardaí had gone to considerable lengths to reduce such robberies, known as “tiger raids”, it was now time to examine if the amount of cash in circulation in Ireland should be reduced. Imposing higher fees for ATM transactions might discourage a dependence on cash and in turn reduce the amount of cash held by banks that could be targeted by organised crime gangs.
“This is something that I did raise with the heads of the banks, and something I suppose as a nation that we have to come to terms with; that we’re not as cashless a society as most of our European colleagues,” Mr Ahern said.
However, speaking on RTÉ Livelilne this afternoon, the Minister said he was just trying to "incentivise" people to use their cards more.
"I wasn’t in any way suggesting that more taxes or more charges be put on people, God almighty in this day and age!”
Mr Ahern said while there are no proposals in place, the removal of the annual stamp duty was one part of the equation that could be looked at.
“If you look at other European states they don’t have the annual charge what they do is pay per transaction, maybe that’s a way of doing and that in a way could save people money.”
Earlier Minister for Enterprise Batt O'Keeffe told The Irish Times Mr Ahern had not raised the issue at Cabinet level.
“No, I haven't spoken to Dermot about the issue - it certainly hasn't been raised as an issue at Cabinet and certainly isn't an issue that is live with Government ministers," Mr O'Keeffe said in Cork.
The proposal was widely criticised by the Opposition.
Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter called Mr Ahern’s proposal a “grossly insensitive response” to the kidnapping of bank official and asked if the minister had considered introducing a tax on pedestrians in response to street muggings.
“He should immediately withdraw his outrageous proposal to impose a bank charge on everyone who withdraws their own hard earned cash from their own bank account,” Mr Shatter said.
Labour Party spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte described Mr Ahern's call as "a cynical distraction" and instead called on Mr Ahern to press the banks to reduce the charges they impose for all non-cash transactions and to remove the stamp duty on credit cards and debit cards.
Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan described the proposal as “ludicrous” and another example of the Government trying to introduce stealth taxes.
“Taxing people for the inadequacies of justice policy is excessive, and unjust, and Minsiter Ahern’s proposal should be cast aside to the Government bin of bad ideas,” he said.
The Irish Bank Officials’ Association (IBOA) said that while a review of cash in society might help, it was not the solution to the problem.
"I’m not that sure that an ATM charge will actually help the situation faced by our members yesterday where they were faced by a scenario where an individual came in, apprehended one of my members, looked at the situation of apprehending his wife and [was] involved in tiger kidnapping," general secretary Larry Broderick said this morning.
"I think the approach has to be to incentivise customers to look at going to a more plastic society than a cash society. But to penalise customers…I'm not too sure that is the solution to the problem, and I’m not too sure that it will address tiger kidnapping."
Irish Payments Services Organisation chief executive Pat McLoughlin welcomed Mr Ahern's remarks, "because it does make the link between our own behaviour and the societal cost to cash . . . and this may be just one part of the remedies".