Gardaí in Galway were last night searching for two armed and masked men who took part in an attempted robbery outside a busy shopping centre yesterday morning.
A number of witnesses described hearing two shots being fired at the entrance to Dunnes Stores, Westside, when the men swooped on security staff as they arrived to fill an ATM machine. Customers dived to the ground inside the supermarket when the shots rang out after the raiders confronted staff as they arrived outside the premises in a Securicor van at about 10.20 a.m.
It is understood there was a time lock on the van and eyewitnesses claimed the security men had resisted the raiders before they fled from the scene in a jeep which was later found abandoned in a nearby housing estate.
Mass-goers coming from the nearby Sacred Heart Church had to scurry out of the way as the raiders made their getaway.
One woman, who was in a shop nearby, said she looked out the front window of the premises and observed the two raiders holding up the security men after being startled by the first shot.
"When I heard the first shot, we thought it was people playing with caps," she said. "Then we heard a second shot, and two guys with balaclavas and guns ran past. I was told by another person that they got two bags of money and they seemed to run off in the direction of the Sacred Heart Church." Anyone who may have witnessed the raid is urged to contact Galway gardaí at 091- 538000.