Updated 17.13

CUSTOMERS WERE LEFT shaken today when a man tried to rob a Dublin post office at lunchtime. A man has since been arrested by gardai in relation to the incident.

A witness who was in the post office at the time told TheJournal.ie that he was standing in the queue when he saw a man scale the counter and jump behind the glass partition.

The witness said that the incident occurred today at around 1.30pm, when there around 10 customers waiting in line.

I was just standing in the queue waiting for the counter. Two people in front of me I saw a tall lad with a white baseball cap, shaved hair, short blue shorts, white socks and white trainers on. He was a tall enough guy. He was standing in front of us and one second I was talking to my friend next to me and the next I looked and saw the guy scaling the glass counter space.

The witness said there “was a bit of commotion behind the counter” but he could not see if the culprit had a weapon on him.

I was chatting to my mate, I think I heard someone shout or say something, but I couldn’t remember was it him or not. Last thing I saw was, if our queue was at one end, in a second or two he was at the far end dropping down. I just stayed there a bit longer to see what was happening.

The other customers left the shop and the man who spoke to TheJournal.ie said he ran to the nearby Rathmines Garda Station to raise the alarm.

I dashed over to the Garda station – there was no one in there for a minute so I kept shouting at them, I just told them the post office had been robbed.

He then returned to the post office and discovered the robber had gone. Customers who had been inside were giving a statement to another Garda including details of the direction in which the man left, and the car in which he travelled.

The witness said that though the incident didn’t frighten him, some of the others who had witnessed the incident looked shaken afterwards.

Gardai at Rathmines have arrested a man in his early 30 following the robbery. A Garda spokesperson said he was “armed with what appeared to be a firearm”. He added:

He threatened staff and then made his escape with a sum of money. He got into a taxi at a rank across the road, threatened the driver forcing him to drive. Gardai responding to the call observed the taxi and stopped it at Leicester Avenue a short time later.

The man was arrested, the sum of money was recovered and he is currently detained at Rathmines Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. No-one was injured in the incident.