Gardai in Dublin were tonight still trying to trace the whereabouts of a convicted armed robber who has been on the run from prison for over four days.
Stephen Walsh (26) from Ballymun has been at large since he gave prison officers the slip as he was treated in St James's Hospital in Dublin.
Officers in Ballymun Station in Dublin said there have been no sightings of Walsh who was due to be released in 2006. The Prison Service said he was possibly facing other charges over an alleged assault on a prison officer which "may have been a motivation" for going on the run.
Walsh was accompanied by three prison officers from Portlaoise Prison to the hospital on Thursday last but managed to escape at around 6.30 p.m.
The convicted armed robber was the third prisoner to escape in the past few weeks. He was jailed in 1999 for a video store robbery in which he held a butcher's knife to a woman's throat. The 26-year-old pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a knife, robbery and the possession of heroin for sale and supply in 1997 and 1998.