Bookmakers targeted by armed raiders in Dublin

Gardaí in Dublin have arrested five people following an attempted robbery at the head office of a bookmakers' firm in the Deansgrange area of the city last night.

Details of the incident are still sketchy, but reports this morning said a gang armed with a handgun and hammers was planning to rob the day's takings from the head of Chronicle bookmakers when he returned to the head office last night.

The gang reportedly stopped a van outside the office, but armed gardaí were lying in wait as a result of a tip-off and moved in to arrest the five men involved.

The incident was the second of two separate raids targeting bookmakers in Dublin in the wake of the Irish Grand National.

In the other robbery, two men armed with a knife and a shotgun conned their way into the house of a bookie off the Navan Road, held his wife hostage and then escaped with a six-figure sum when he arrived home for the night.