A Co Galway man is among the four foreign oil workers kidnapped last night by armed men in Nigeria.
Brian Fogarty, who works for US oil services company Halliburton, was seized from a bar in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt just before midnight last night, police said.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the kidnapping and said the Irish embassy in Abuja was liasing with Nigerian authorities.
British citizen John Guyan was also kidnapped. Mr Guyan works for Smith International, a supplier of products and services to the oil and gas industry. There are no details on the two other victims.
The kidnappers, who wore army uniforms, shot sporadically as they stormed the bar in three vehicles, which they abandoned and escaped in a waiting speedboat after security forces engaged them in a fierce gun battle, police said.
"There was serious shooting in the bar and they left taking away some white men," said bar manager Edith Monigha, adding there had been more than seven attackers. "They didn't rob us or ask for anything else, they only wanted the white men."
News of the kidnappings came just after the release of three Filipino gas workers who had been taken hostage 10 days ago.
Separately today, Norway's ambassador to Nigeria said negotiators were close to a deal to free four other foreign workers - two Norwegians and two Ukrainians - kidnapped from an oil services ship off the coast of Nigeria last week.
The wave of kidnappings coincides with an upsurge in militant attacks against the oil industry which has cut oil production by 25 percent in the world's eighth largest exporter since February.
Additional reporting: Reuters