IRELAND was left outraged today as Dublin city residents awoke to find a giant gaping hole in O’Connell street this morning.
The officially named Monument of Light was reported missing from the capitals skyline at around 5am.
Gardai arrived on the scene shortly after lunch time to investigate the disappearance on the 121 metre stainless steel spire.
CCTV footage recovered from various businesses in the area show several vans and heavy goods vehicles pulling up to the award winning sculpture shortly after 3am.
“There were at least 50-60 passengers on board the convoy.” said a garda spokesman earlier.
“We suspect most of the men involved were members of the travelling community due to the white vests and chino pants they were wearing.”
Detective Martin Burke of store street Garda station appealed to any witnesses, that may have been around the city centre between 3am to 5am, to come forward with any information they may have relating to the matter.
“Someone must have feckin’ seen or heard something for Christ sake.”
“There would have been a lot of commotion in dismantling a structure like that.” he added.
Detectives disclosed that the four million euro monument may have been already sold on for scrap for as little as €10,000.
Gardai have since released several detailled photographs of the spires base designs to the press and are currently carrying out searches of major scrap yards across the country.
Detective Burke stated that this is the third such incident like this to happen in the last four weeks.
“Only last week we apprehended a gang of travellers in Limerick who somehow came into possession of a European weather satellite. “
Investigators are not exactly sure how the gang acquired the orbiting satellite but the International space station has been on high alert ever since.
