IRISH police were flying to Belgium yesterday after paintings stolen

from a multi-million pound art collection in the republic seven years

ago were found in Belgium.

Four of the works taken from the County Wicklow home of collector Sir

Alfred Beit are thought to have been recovered and three men, all

believed to be from Dublin, were being questioned by detectives in

Brussels.

A total of 18 paintings, by artists including Vermeer, Goya,

Gainsborough, Velasquez, and Metsu, were snatched in the raid at

millionaire Sir Alfred's Russborough House home in the village of

Blessington.

The thieves, believed to be part of a Dublin-based gang, dumped seven

of the paintings soon after, apparently because they were of relatively

little value, and a Metsu was found in Turkey two years ago and returned

to Ireland.

The four paintings found in Belgium were understood to include

Vermeer's The Letter, said to be worth up to #20m and the most valuable

of the stolen old masters.

Not long before the theft, the entire collection -- with a present-day

value running into tens of millions of pounds -- was donated to the

Irish nation by Sir Alfred and the recovered Metsu is now in Dublin's

National Gallery.