Competition in the security industry cannot be allowed "to drive standards down to the floor", the Minister for Justice has said.
Speaking after an hour-long meeting with representatives of transit companies, banks, An Post and the Irish Bankers' Federation, Mr McDowell said he had told them: "Standards have to be established, and a market based on adequate standards has to exist.
"Therefore, the banks had to be aware of the fact that there would be a cost involved and that ultimately they and other customers of the cash-in-transit companies would have to bear the full cost of that investment," the Minister said.
"You can't expect investment to be made by one company if they are going to be undercut by other companies which supply services with inadequate training and standards."
The meeting was called by Mr McDowell following this week's €2.4 million robbery from a Brinks Allied security van and other recent robberies from cash-in-transit vehicles.
Mr McDowell said cash transit companies had four months to improve security, or else face State rules.
New cash security boxes which spread dye or destroy notes if a raid takes place, "and which can't be opened even under duress by the people carrying them", would have to be introduced by all companies.
Improved GPS satellite tracking systems, which are adequately equipped with alarms, must be employed, along with stiffer security at cash depot centres, he said.
Closed-circuit TV systems "in all branches of banks, credit unions, not merely in the premises, but around the premises" must be fitted to deter would-be robbers, he said.
Unless voluntary improvements were made, Mr McDowell said, he would require cash-in-transit companies to meet State-imposed standards.
"That is a road which I don't really want to go unless I am obliged to do so," the Minister, accompanied by the Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy, said.
"I have received an assurance from the main players in the business that they are going to address those matters over the next couple of months."
The recently created Private Security Association of Ireland (PSAI) is currently working on a code of practice for security of all types.
"But one way or another by the end of the summer the PSAI has to be in a position whereby it can impose proper standards on the cash-in-transit business," Mr McDowell said.
The PSAI, under its chairwoman, Ms Michelle Doyle, is to meet next Monday to "reconsider priorities in the light of the events for the cash-in-transit business".
Entering the meeting, the managing director of Brinks Allied, Mr Alan Jordan, said the Minister would "on mature reflection" regret his criticism of the company on Wednesday.
However, Mr McDowell was unrepentant: "I don't regret anything I said yesterday. If anything I was measured and understated in what I said."
The Brinks Allied executive, he said, had certainly indicated that the decision of the security van crew to stop in Artane for coffee "was not something that they would stand over".
Strongly defending the Garda Síochána, the Minister said: "It was agreed by all that there was no question whatsoever of the gardaí in any way being absent when they were expected, or being deficient in any way in their participation in the events.
"There was a clear understanding that the vehicle would rendezvous with the gardaí at a particular location.
"There was no indication given that it was carrying a large sum of money, no arrangements were even attempted to even inform the gardaí of that situation, or to have them provide an escort at an earlier point in time," the Minister said.
