One of hostage family was post-office worker

Armed tiger kidnappers struck again today targeting the family of another post office worker just one day after an almost identical attack.

In the latest incident, a gang of men forced their way into a north Dublin home at around 1am this morning and tied up a husband and wife and their 26-year-old son.

Several hours into the ordeal the father and son were hooded and bundled into the rear of a van and taken away while the mother was left behind with instructions from the captors.

It is understood one of the family worked at a post office and the armed raiders were looking for cash.

At around 7am, the van developed mechanical problems while travelling southbound on the M50 and the kidnappers pulled into the hard shoulder before fleeing the scene on foot across nearby open ground.

The two male victims were left in the van where they were discovered about 15 minutes later when a Garda patrol car based at Finglas stopped to check the vehicle.

The mother was discovered unharmed when officers returned with the husband and son to the family home at Glasnevin Avenue.

Two cars were also used by the gang during the incident, a wine-coloured Toyota Avensis, with registration number 05 D 43161, and a silver BMW, with the registration number M9TVU.

Detectives do not believe at this stage there was any link between the overnight attack and the botched tiger kidnapping of a 62-year-old postmistress from her Whitehall apartment in north Dublin on Tuesday evening.

After being forced to hand over the keys to the North Strand Post Office, she managed to escape from her captors in the early hours of the morning when one of them fell asleep after taking drugs.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell was this morning asked by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to comment in the Dáil on the latest spate of tiger kidnappings.

Mr McDowell, who was representing the Taoiseach, said he had spoken with Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy about the attacks.

Last night John Kane, general secretary of the Irish Postmasters Union, warned his members may be forced into leaving their jobs because of the increased security risk.

“We are obviously very concerned. Postmasters and postmistresses are already living very stressful lives with the threat of being raided on the premises during the day,” he said.

“We were hoping we would escape these sort of attacks but now our members have to be concerned about their safety for the other 16 hours of the day they are not in work.

“It could even lead to some of them considering whether they want to continue working as postmasters or postmistresses because the risk is so great.”

Mr Kane contacted management at An Post about the issue and is to hold talks in the coming days on what extra security measures can be implemented.

“We’re not sure if anything can be done about it. We will be exploring every avenue open to us,” he said.