Gardaí are today hunting a gang of at least four men who held a bank employee and his family hostage in a Dublin robbery.
The 23-year-old National Irish Bank employee was forced to remove what gardai described as a "substantial" amount of cash from the Killester branch while three other members of his family were being held at gunpoint.
The senior officer leading the investigation, Chief Supt Peter Maguire said detectives were currently keeping an open mind on the case. "It's a very early stage of the investigation and we're ruling nothing in and ruling nothing out," he said.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Chief Supt Maguire said one of the gang was in his 50s, dressed in black, 5'4" or 5'5" tall, and wearing a blonde false hairpiece and a face mask.
Mr Maguire said: "Thankfully, the family sustained themselves well during this horrific ordeal and they were available for us very quickly for interviewing. They have given us a full description of the events as they unfolded." He refused to disclose the amount of cash stolen.
"There are certain pieces of information that we feel are critical to an investigation and certainly the amount of money taken in robberies is something we don't reveal for investigative purposes. Secondly, the property attacked is private and if the people concerned want to reveal the information it is up to them and not the Garda Siochana."
Forensic officers are examining the family home in Clontarf, National Irish Bank in Killester, a car used to collect and deliver the money and wasteground where the family were held overnight.
The family's ordeal began shortly after 9.45pm on Monday night when four men forcibly entered the house at Seacliff Avenue in Baldoyle and imprisoned a mother, her two daughters aged 16 and 18, and her 23-year-old son. The men wore masks and carried firearms.
Two family members were kept imprisoned in the house until after 11am the following morning, while the other two were taken to open ground off the Balgriffin Road where they were held at gunpoint overnight. The man was driven to the NIB branch in Killester and ordered to deliver a substantial amount of cash to a specific location in Clontarf.
The robbery was the country's latest so-called "tiger raid". In March 2005, a gang of armed and masked men held a north Dublin family overnight and robbed more than €2 million from a Securicor security van.
This latest hostage-taking robbery prompted renewed Opposition criticism of Government policy on armed crime.
The Irish Bank Officials Association today called for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to address staff concerns in the wake of the robbery.
Iboa general secretary Larry Broderick said: "As a trade union, it is our main priority to ensure staff can carry out their work duties in a safe and secure environment and not living in fear for their safety and that of their families.
"It is clear that there is a growing trend whereby bank staff are regarded as particularly vulnerable and viewed as a 'soft target' by criminal gangs."
Mr Broderick added that many staff who become the victims in such robberies are unable to continue working out of fear for their safety. "
The IBOA will ask the minister to set up a joint working group involving the gardai, the Department of Justice, the banking and security industry and staff representatives to monitor developments in the general area of security within the financial services sector.