The Garda detective who shot and injured a 22-year-old man during a robbery in a Dublin citycentre shop has said that the man "lunged" at him with a knife before he opened fire.
The injured man, who has a criminal record, was wanted by gardai for questioning about other robberies and for being unlawfully at large.
The man, who held up a newsagents in South Leinster Street on Monday evening, was shot once in the chest and once in the leg.
Two men had held up staff at the shop, threatening them with a 12-inch knife. They had taken about £150 from the till and had stuffed their pockets with cigarettes when two detectives, who were in the vicinity at the time, responded to an emergency call to the shop.
It is understood that the officer who produced the gun has stated that he gave a warning to the man armed with the knife and opened fire only when the man lunged at him. The officer, who has served in the Pearse Street Detective Unit for much of his career, fired two shots, both of which struck the man.
It emerged yesterday that the injured man evaded gardai while they were overpowering and arresting his uninjured associate. He ran into the grounds of Trinity College. Apparently suffering from blood loss, he asked two students to call an ambulance. He was taken to the Meath Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery.
The wounded man's condition stabilised yesterday. Although he was described as being "seriously ill", it is understood that his life is not in danger.
Chief Supt Pat Culhane, who is in charge of the Dublin Metropolitan Eastern Division, yesterday began an internal Garda inquiry into the shooting.
Meanwhile, the funeral is due to take place today of Eamon O'Reilly, the 23-year-old Finglas man who died from a shotgun blast during a melee in a local public house between two rival gangs.
Mr O'Reilly was unmarried but was the father of one son and lived with another woman who has two children from a previous relationship. He was killed when a man sitting close to him produced a sawn-off shotgun during an outbreak of fighting in the Tower pub on Sunday evening and it accidentally went off.