He would've got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling Gardaí.

A Dublin man has been arrested after he attempted to steal a tractor from a farm in rural County Wicklow.

Gardaí were alerted to the robbery shortly before 9am on Sunday, May 27 and intercepted the suspect as he tried to drive the tractor out of a field in Rathnew.

The man was arrested and taken to Wicklow Garda Station for questioning.

The tractor was recovered and there were no signs of any damage to the vehicle.

A file is currently being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).


Burglary spike

It comes after a new national crime report published on Monday showed that the Irish commuter belt has seen a surge in burglaries during the last year.

While the national burglary rate increased by just 3% in 2017, County Westmeath experienced a huge 44% spike - with Meath at 35%, Kildare at 20% and Wicklow at 10%.

According to the figures released by the CSO and An Garda Siochána, home alarm system provider PhoneWatch found that there were 19,092 burglaries in Ireland last year - which is an increase on the previous year's figure of 18,478.

Surprisingly enough however, Dublin's burglary rate decreased by 7% during the same period.