Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has warned the security industry that rigorous regulation will be imposed on it if it fails to meet proper standards.
Speaking in Oranmore, Galway, following the €2.4 million security van raid in Dublin, he said he had summoned representatives of the private security industry and the banks to meet him today over standards applied in transporting large sums of money.
Mr McDowell said that if the industry was not capable of providing proper standards, such standards would have to be imposed in a rigorous way.
He said the gardaí were powerless to act if companies were permitting the movement of large amounts of cash in a less than professional manner. "I am deeply disturbed about it, because preliminary reports indicate that it was a robbery that should not have happened," he said.
"All robberies should not happen, but this one in particular seems to have had its origin in a basic departure from fundamental standards which I would have expected from a security firm of repute."
The Minister said the indications were that the vehicle had a large sum of money in it and that it went into a service station for a purpose which had nothing to do with the delivery or receipt of money.
One of the staff had left the vehicle to purchase coffee, he noted, and this was "just not acceptable in this day and age".
He said the indications were that there was a departure from proper standards and procedures and that this should not have happened.
"It's not simply the security firm or whoever the money belonged to who has lost here, it is the public who lose when large sums of money find their way into the hands of dangerous gangs such as this," he said.
Mr McDowell said a forum existed in relation to the interests concerned with this whole business, the banks and cash carriers, and he would see them within 24 hours. He said he would convey to them the Government's complete determination that this kind of thing could not happen again, and that they must apply standards that were acceptable to protect the public from this kind of crime.
Mr McDowell said when the licensing regime came into effect, those who failed to live up to those standards would have their licences withdrawn.
"Either they are in business to do this job in a professional way or they are not."