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Typical innovations include fingerprint ID for access to trucks, internal lockers and drop safes, GPS tracking, CCTV and imploding dyes that render cash useless. Wages have also improved to attract new personnel, but according to McMahon, CIT personnel still receive an average of €25,000 a year, less than half the amount paid to gardai.

Three of the four main CIT companies — Brinks, Chubb and Securicor — are standalone subsidiaries of international companies and are responsible for their own profits and losses. The fourth, Omada, is Irish-owned.

“Any business in the full of its health would be under pressure but if it is underfunded, undercapitalised and there are large financial institutions squeezing the life out of it, then a large multinational will move elsewhere,” warned one senior industry source.

McDowell, despite his staunch libertarian credentials, agreed this was one area where free-market economics might have to be tempered. When asked by The Sunday Times if there was a case for the replacement of an undercapitalised industry with a single, state-run alternative, particularly as the transport of cash is a core service to the economy, the department of justice replied:

“The minister said that while he recognised that all the companies — whether it be the banks who placed the contracts for cash movements, or the security companies who operated the service — all sought to seek maximum value, there came a point where the law of diminishing returns applies if security is compromised.

“The significant profits generated by the banks depend upon a stable society. It is in the interests of the banks as well as the security companies to invest in the people and technologies that will deter robberies of the type recently witnessed.”

The banking sector rejects any assertion it is not doing all it can to help deter armed robberies on security vans.

“The banks’ own investment would be in excess of €70m to ensure, ultimately, that the proper processes and systems are in place as well as staff training to make the transport of cash as secure as possible,” said Felix O’Regan, information manager at the Irish Bankers’ Federation.

At the meeting with McDowell, the CIT chiefs also criticised the government for not allowing their vehicles to use bus lanes and for making them liable to fines and points on employees’ licences for parking on a kerb to get as close as possible to an ATM.

“We shouldn’t be running this industry on the basis of the gardai turning a blind eye. We do get points for being on the bus lane where we should be exempt in law,” said a chief executive of one CIT company.

Industry insiders have dubbed Ireland “the Baghdad of Western Europe” based on European Security Transport Association figures for 2004 which showed that one in three vehicles was at risk of attack compared with one in 12 in the rest of Europe.

In 1998, there were 10 attacks on security vans in Ireland, with losses of about €1m. In 2001, this figure rose to 32 attacks with a similar value in losses, but by 2003 this had jumped to 63 attacks, incurring losses of about €5.5m, 3Å times the average of the previous six years. After the relative calm of last year, it appears to be business as usual.