Gardaí investigating the “tiger kidnapping” of the family of bank official and former Kilkenny hurler Adrian Ronan have appealed for witnesses to the incident to contact them.
Mr Ronan’s three children, all of whom are below the age of 10, were unaware a robbery was taking place and that a shot was fired by a man holding their mother, Mary, hostage during yesterday’s eight-hour ordeal.
The family’s ordeal began at their home at Michael’s Church, Ballycallan, Co Kilkenny, at 6.15am. Three masked men, at least one of whom was armed with a handgun, broke in to the house.
Ms Ronan was taken away at gunpoint. Mr Ronan was left with instructions to go to work as normal at 9am to the Parliament Street branch of the Bank of Ireland in Kilkenny city.
He was told his wife would only be released unharmed if he took €3 million from the branch. The gang gave him a phone saying they would ring him later in the morning and direct him where to drop the money off for collection.
The three Ronan children were asleep when the raiders broke into their house. Mr Ronan took them in to work with him.
When the gang members rang Mr Ronan just before noon, he told them he was only able to get €200,000 because of the time-lock systems on the safe. They demanded he get more money.
Just after 1pm the gang rang him back and told him to put whatever money he had in a bag and to go to his car parked close by and await further instruction via the mobile phone. However, he never heard from the gang again.
The Bank of Ireland had told gardaí what was happening and a major Garda operation was put in place.
Gardaí believe the gang may have become nervous over the course of the protracted robbery attempt and simply decided to abandon the heist.