This article is from page 12 of the 2006-01-31 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
GARDAÍ are hunting for a gang who they believe are responsible for a spate of post office robberies in the east Clare/north Tipperary area over the past few months.
A woman in her 40s endured a terrifying ordeal when she was tied up and locked in the bathroom of her home, adjacent to the post office in Whitegate in the early hours of last Wednesday.
Three intruders, wearing balaclavas and carrying a baseball bat, broke into her home and tied her up, at around 3.20am. She remained tied up until another family member arrived on the premises shortly after 8am.
The men fled with what gardaí described as “a very small sum” of cash, after they failed to gain entry to the safe.
An aluminium folding ladder, with the initials “EW” written on black marker, was found at the Whitegate premises, the bottom rung of which was green. Gardai say this did not belong there. They have urged people to check their premises, to see if a ladder is missing.
Inspector Kevin Moynihan said a link between this robbery and post office robberies in Broadford – in which €30,000 was stolen – Kilkishen and various parts of north Tipperary in recent months was been investigated.
“We are certainly actively pursuing that there may have been a link between the Broadford post office robbery in November and this one. There is a possibility that other post office robberies in north Tipperary and Clare were carried out by the same gang,” said Insp Moynihan.
He is advising people to have alarms fitted to their premises and to ensure they are connected to a monitoring station.
“People should look at the possibility of having CCTV cameras installed. These people would case the place a day or two before carrying out a robbery, maybe not buying much, but paying attention to a premises.”
Senator Timmy Dooley (FF) said the break-in at Whitegate should prompt An Post to improve security measures at rural post offices..
A spokesperson for An Post would not comment publicly on security matters.
But she said the company would spend €15 million on security across the national post office network this year.