A security guard was last night being treated in hospital after he was shot by raiders during a robbery in Clane, Co Kildare. Two masked raiders escaped with up to €14,000 when they robbed the security guard at gunpoint as he was delivering money to the Ulster Bank in Clane at about 9.30 a.m. yesterday.
Two masked raiders escaped with up to €14,000 when they robbed the security guard at gunpoint as he was delivering money to the Ulster Bank in Clane at about 9.30 a.m. yesterday.
Security industry union representatives said the shooting of the security guard, the first incident of its kind in recent years, was a sinister development which would heighten fears among workers delivering cash to ATM machines and banks.
The Securicor employee was approached by the two masked raiders on the pavement outside the Ulster Bank in Clane. One threatened the guard with a hand gun and demanded the money he was carrying.
A scuffle ensued during which the guard was shot in the leg. He suffered a flesh wound to his right leg and lost a significant amount of blood.
He was taken by ambulance to Naas General Hospital. His injuries were not life-threatening.
The guard who was injured was delivering about €9,000 in foreign currency and around €4,000 in Irish currency to the Ulster Bank.
The driver of the Securicor van transporting the money remained in the parked vehicle, as is regulation, as the attack happened.
The two raiders escaped in a blue Alfa Romeo car which was found abandoned a short time later in the Oatfield area of Clane.
The raiders had attempted to set fire to it. The vehicle had been stolen, along with its keys, during a robbery on a house in Donabate in November and had been fitted with false number plates.
Senior Garda sources said the manner in which the vehicle was taken and fitted with false number plates was identical to how west Dublin gangs responsible for a series of robberies on cash-in-transit vans last year had operated.
Gardaí believe the raiders may have left the Clane area in a blue Transit van.
The Alfa Romeo and the scene of the robbery were examined by members of the Garda Technical Bureau.
Yesterday's raid was the second armed robbery of a cash-in- transit van this year. A similar attack took place in Sutton, Dublin, last week.
The attacks follow a spate of cash-in-transit robberies early last year during which more than €2 million was stolen by a small number of Dublin criminal gangs. Gardai responded by establishing Operation Delivery in June to combat the worst spate of armed robberies since the late 1980s. Only a handful have been carried out since the operation was set up, compared with about 40 in the first six months of 2004.
SIPTU's security branch secretary, Mr Kevin McMahon, said his union was seeking a meeting with the Minister for Justice and representatives from the financial sector to discuss security surrounding cash deliveries. He said gardaí should provide more armed escorts for cash deliveries while other parties should work towards providing secure locations to which money could be delivered for ATMs.
