Decisions to send gardaí to some ATMs across the country last night following a technical issue with Bank of Ireland were made locally on a "case-by-case basis", gardaí have said.
The Central Bank has said it is engaging with Bank of Ireland following yesterday's technical fault that allowed some customers to withdraw or transfer more money than they had in their accounts.
The system has now been corrected. The problem led to queues forming at some ATMs around the country last night.
In some cases, gardaí were directed to go to areas where queues had formed.
A spokesperson said that this was carried out on a "case-by-case basis" and that "local decisions were made depending on the public safety and public order".
Bank of Ireland has said the issue, which disrupted its online banking portal 365 online, as well as its mobile banking app, has been resolved.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the bank said that following the outage yesterday the app and 365 online are back working again and overnight payments will be made to accounts throughout the day.
Bank of Ireland apologised for the disruption and acknowledged "it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us".
Following the outage yesterday, the App and 3650nline are back working again. Overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day. We sincerely apologise for the disruption this outage caused - we know it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us.
— Bank of Ireland (@talktoBOI) August 16, 2023
In response to a query from RTÉ's News at One, on whether the bank requested any assistance from gardaí at ATMs, the bank said: "Dialogue took place between Bank of Ireland and An Garda Síochána, but local decisions were made by the guards (not requested by the bank) to station personnel at a number of ATMs."
Gardaí also reminded people of their personal responsibility in carrying out their personal banking.
In a statement this morning, the bank said these withdrawals and transfers will be applied to customer accounts today.
It said any customer who finds themselves in financial difficulty due to overdrawing on their account should contact the bank.
The bank also added that ATMs are being replenished today.
The problems first emerged yesterday afternoon when customers were unable to access the services although contactless, card and ATM services were unaffected.
Reports on social media suggested that some customers had been able to transfer more money than they had in their Bank of Ireland accounts to other external accounts and then withdraw the cash from ATMs.
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said he has asked the Central Bank to establish a full account of what happened, why it happened and what will be done to avoid a repeat.
"My officials have been in contact with the Central Bank of Ireland and Bank of Ireland today," the minister said.
"Given our growing dependence on technology for the delivery of financial services, I have asked my officials to engage with the Central Bank on its assessment of the robustness of this Bank of Ireland incident, and more broadly the robustness of the technology systems used by regulated, customer-facing financial service providers here in Ireland, and whether any further steps are required to reduce the risk of outages that impact on customers," he said.
"From my point of view as Minister for Finance, financial service providers have to do whatever is required to ensure continuity of service for their customers.
"This is vital for the normal functioning of our society and our economy. Disruption to banking services can have a significant effect on people's personal lives and on the running of businesses. Customers rightly have an expectation of a high quality of service and to be able to have uninterrupted access to services."
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Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said Garda Commissioner Drew Harris should outline the circumstances behind the presence of gardaí at Bank of Ireland ATMs.
"I think it begs a whole lot of questions as to why gardaí were effectively operating as private security for a bank last night," Mr Murphy said.
"They weren't just out monitoring large crowds, trying to avoid anti-social behaviour or public order incidents. It’s clear that they shut access to ATMs.
"They parked cars in front of ATMs, they stood in front of ATMs effectively trying to protect Bank of Ireland from an error Bank of Ireland had made."
Speaking on the same programme, Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher said he believed that gardaí were "giving security" to a private entity.
"They were there to ensure that public order was maintained but questions should be asked about deployment and was there a request put in from Bank of Ireland to the gardaí for their deployment to mind the ATMs.
"I can fully understand why the public would be very angry with this.
"Rather than criticising the gardaí for this particular issue, what we should be doing is seeing more gardaí on the streets all the time."
Meanwhile, the Central Bank said today it continues to monitor the situation regarding the availability of certain services provided by Bank of Ireland.
"We are engaging with Bank of Ireland to ensure that any issues and errors identified are resolved for customers, and that it is doing all it can to ensure customers' expectation of a high quality, uninterrupted service is met," it said in a statement.
The Central Bank says it will establish a full account of the outage, which will include understanding the root cause of the service disruption and what BOI is doing to avoid further disruption.
"Detailed supervisory engagement" will continue, however the Central bank says it is not in a position to release confidential information regarding any institution.
The statement adds that customers should contact Bank of Ireland in the first instance if they have concerns about their service.
It added that for more information, impacted customers should contact Bank of Ireland on 0818 214 365 or visit www.bankofireland.com.
Bank of Ireland was fined €24.5m in 2021 by the Central Bank over failures to have a robust framework to ensure continuity of services in the event of a significant IT disruption.
Brendan Burgess, founder of the website AskAboutMoney.com, said yesterday's malfunction was yet another example of the Bank of Ireland's IT systems not working.
Mr Burgess said he believed the bank would give leeway to people who engaged in normal transactions yesterday, but it would be another matter for those who withdrew unusually large amounts.
