Rees for Dublin

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33533, 14 May 1974, Page 13

Rees for Dublin

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) DUBLIN, May 13. Britain’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Merlyn Rees) is due in Dublin today for talks with Government leaders in the Irish Republic, on the future of her northern neighbour.

The location and details of Mr Rees’s day-long talks are being kept secret for security reasons amid reports that extremists of the outlawed Irish Republican Army consider British politicians legitimate targets for violence. Meanwhile, the Irish police are searching for two gunmen who broke through a police roadblock in the west of the Republic on Saturday night. The police are refusing to comment oh reports that the two men are wanted in connection with the £Bm art robbery near Dublin, more than two weeks ago. The police said that 30 to 40 police officers surrounded a house in the village of Sonnagh, 180 miles north-west of Dublin, last night. The men ran out, fired about 10 shots, and hijacked the car of a local resident for their getaway They fired more shots at a police road-block, then escaped on foot across fields. An Army helicopter was called in to help the search. The stolen paintings, includings works by Vermeer, Rubens and Goya, were recovered undamaged in a village house in the south of the Republic eight days ago, and an Englishwoman, Dr Bridget Rose Dugdale, was charged in Dublin with the theft