A Co Tipperary priest was tied up for several hours in his home while masked thieves stole his parish's Lenten Trocaire funds in Emly late on Sunday night.
The parish priest, Father Seamus Rochford, was watching television when two masked men broke in and confronted him.
The men, who were described as tall, stole money from the house and the local parish church. They spoke with Limerick accents.
Yesterday Supt Michael Murray confirmed that gardai were investigating the incident with help from their counterparts in Limerick. He said he expected arrests later this week.
He confirmed that the intruders broke into Father Rochford's house, tied him up and took approximately £400, which was mostly money collected for Trocaire over the Easter period.
Father Rochford said yesterday: "There was no great story. I was broken into at about 11.45 last night and tied up for about two hours. They took money, a small amount in the church, a couple of hundred pounds there. It was money collected over Easter".
The intruders entered the house through a rear window while Father Rochford was watching a sports programme on television. The priest said yesterday that he could not describe them because they were masked "from head to toe".
"They did not threaten me. They did not do much damage in the house beyond taking out a pane of glass in the window to get in here", he said.
The intruders tied Father Rochford up using plastic ties, commonly used to fasten hub-caps to the wheels of cars.
"They tied me up and asked me whether I wanted to lie down or sit up," he said. Before the two thieves left, they asked the priest for a phone number of one of his friends. They planned to phone the priest's friend, an hour after they had fled the scene, so he could be freed.
"I gave them the phone number of a parishioner. They said they would contact the parishioner within an hour. They did, and within an hour the parishioner contacted the gardai and they came very quickly. I was set free at about 1.40 a.m.", Father Rochford said.
"I am not angry. There is no point in being angry. You have to keep going", he added.