A former IRA man has helped design a smash-and-grab proof cash machine.
Sean McGlinchey was part of a team that created the concrete "pod" that he says would take an 80 tonne digger a day and a half to break into
The Sinn Fein councillor told the Irish News the bunker is “near impossible to take out”.
The pod features a one metre deep base, two and a half tonnes of heavy steel and 25 metres of specialised concrete.
One has already been installed at a garage and shop outside Dungiven, Co Derry that was targeted by thieves earlier this year.
Significant damage was caused to the ATM at O’Kane’s filling station in the early hours of April 7. In that incident a digger was used and the cash machine lifted into a car with part of its roof cut off.
Mr McGlinchey, a Sinn Fein councillor at Causeway Coast and Glens, said the idea came up after he visited Martin O’Kane at the shop after the incident.
He works for Dungiven based firm Ideal Form who have designed and are fabricating the pods, Belfast Live reports.
He added: “It’s standalone, not near the shop and is near impossible to take out. It would take someone a day and a half with an 80 tonne digger and a rock hammer.”
Mr McGlinchey said there have been a number of enquiries from other businesses about the pods.
Martin O’Kane praised the bunkers.
He said: “Sean made a massive effort and was one of the many who came to clean up [after the theft]. He offered to rebuild it. It was sore on my business but I am looking forward to the future now.”
Mr McGlinchey served 18 years in jail for his role in a car bomb that cost six lives in Coleraine in 1973.
