Vanessa Keegan, from Clonsilla in Dublin, lost her HTC smartphone after an audacious seagull snatched the device and dropped it into a pond at the National Botanic Gardens.

Mrs Keegan had put her phone on the ground moments before the theft to spend time with her children, only for daughter Caroline to point and cry: “Mam, he’s got your phone!”

The bird took flight with the device in its beak.

Senator Denis O’Donovan responded angrily to the news, claiming the birds were “invading the towns and the villages”.

He told Seanad Éireann to reconsider a seagull cull, which was also proposed last year.

Mr O’Donovan said: “I think it’s important that we should consider Senator O’Sullivan’s request last year that we should look at a cull on this vicious seabird, which is against our grain, they were normally living out at sea.

“They nest on the cliffs, but they are now invading the towns and the villages.”

He added: “Seagulls are actually becoming a nuisance and a pest.”