ONCE AGAIN there was a strong armed garda presence around Enniscorthy last week as the authorities cracked down on a notorious criminal gang operating in the area.

Four men were arrested in relation to a shocking burglary in Taghmon just outside Wexford at 10 p.m. on Wednesday night which saw a vulnerable old age pensioner (90) severely threatened by a gang before they made off with a sum of cash and electrical items. The man, who lives by himself, was left uninjured, but shaken by the incident.

The men arrested, aged from their 20s to 40s and all believed to be members of the notorious “Rubber O’Reilly” gang, were said to have been known to Gardaí and were under surveillance. Immediately after the burglary, the gang fled to the Enniscorthy area, but less than an hour after arriving at the property in the Brownswood area, armed members of the Regional Support Unit (RSU) swooped on the house and arrested the suspects, one of whom, a 48 year-old, is said to be a “kingpin” of the prolific traveller gang.

Gardaí have been monitoring the activity of the “Rubber O’Reilly” gang in the Enniscorthy area for quite some time and just a couple of months ago, two women associated with the gang were arrested following the seizure of €75,000 worth of stolen property. The gang is suspected of being behind a spate of burglaries all over the country, including a number of vicious attacks on elderly people, similar to the incident in Taghmon last week. They are long term targets of the Criminal Assets Bureau who led the search operation against them in Waterford and Wexford back in March.

For more, see this week’s Echo.