Gardai are treating as suspicious five incidents in Tipperary over the past few days in which children were offered lifts by strangers. They say there is no thing to link the incidents and no evidence of an intention to abduct the children concerned.
Parents and children were urged to be vigilant, however, and to report any suspicious approaches to the Garda.
Two of the incidents took place in Cahir while the others were in Clonmel, Thurles and Golden. They followed a similar approach made to a group of children in Walkinstown, Dublin, last week.
Insp Paschal Feeney of Cahir, who is co-ordinating the Tipperary investigations, said in each case the children had done the right thing in refusing to accept the lifts and reporting what had happened to their parents.
In the first incident, in Clonmel on Thursday, a 10-year-old boy was approached by a man and a woman in a car described as "grey or dark-coloured" at the entrance to the Toberaheana housing estate. The woman asked the boy his name and offered him a lift. When he refused she said she would have to speak to his parents about him.
Supt Dick Burke of Clonmel said the incident was being treated as suspicious. Three gardai had gone to the scene and carried out inquiries. The male driver of the car was described as being in his late 20s, with short dark hair and was clean-shaven. The woman, also in her late 20s, was described as having dark, curly shoulder-length hair.
The following day at 4.50 p.m. in Cahir, a motorcyclist wearing a black helmet offered an eight year-old girl in the Pearse Street area a lift, which she declined. The man left immediately. Also on Friday a 10-year-old boy was offered a lift by a man in a car about a 1-1/2 miles from Golden, on the Tipperary side of the village, which he declined.
On Saturday at 12.30 p.m., a man and a woman in a dark-coloured car approached a 7year-old boy at Beechpark estate in Cahir and offered him a lift. The boy ran away and the car left in the direction of Clogheen. The man was described as being in his 50s with black receding hair, had a black moustache and wore glasses. The woman was described as being in her 30s with blonde hair.
In Thurles at about 9 a.m. yesterday an eight-year-old girl was approached by a man driving a white car as she crossed Castle Avenue. The man, described as "chubby" and possibly in his late 40s, with black or grey very short hair, invited her into the car. The girl ran to her home.
In the incident in Walkinstown, three girls aged six to eight said they were approached on St James's Road by a woman who alighted from a white van and invited them to cross to the van to have some sweets. A man remained in the van.
