Gardaí following definite line of enquiry following hoax bomb calls in Cork City
A security alert in Cork City say the courthouse on Washington St evacuated.
Gardaí have seized a mobile phone and are following a definite line of enquiry after large parts of Cork City were shut down during a major security alert on Friday.
They have also ruled out any connection between the Dublin riots on Thursday night and the series of hoax bomb threats which were directed at several key Cork city centre buildings, including a courthouse, a major city centre hospital, and the city’s divisional garda headquarters.
A person was identified and located very quickly, a phone has been seized, and a garda spokesman said detectives are now following a definite line of enquiry as investigations continue.
“We appreciate that there was a lot of anxiety and unease in the city centre during this security alert on Friday, given what happened in Dublin the night before, but we are fully satisfied that there is no connection between the incidents whatsoever. This series of hoax bomb threats was an incident in isolation,” a senior garda spokesman said.
The alarm was raised just after 11am on Friday when gardaí in the control room at Anglesea St Garda Station received a number of phone calls in quick succession from a number of locations in the city centre to say they had each received phone calls alleging that a bomb had been placed on their premises.
A major security alert in Cork City centre has been lifted as Gardai confirm the threats this morning were hoax bomb threats pic.twitter.com/suz8lddjHg
— Eoin English (@EoinBearla) November 24, 2023
The locations included the courthouse on Washington St, the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and Anglesea St Garda Station.
A major security operation was triggered and the threat to the Garda station was dismissed quickly.
But the courthouse and MUH triggered their own specific protocols in relation to such threats.
Gardaí and several units of the Cork City Fire Brigade rushed to the courthouse and sealed off several approach roads.
The fire crews were operating in defensive mode, and were on standby to assist gardaí if required.
Gardaí worked quickly to identify the source of the bomb threat calls, as garda units and fire crews rushed to MUH where plans were being put in place to evacuate an area of the hospital.
But within minutes, word came through that gardaí were now satisfied that the bomb threats were a hoax.
“An Garda Síochána is satisfied that all of the alerts have been deemed as hoax and the areas have been declared safe,” gardaí said in a statement.
The security cordons were lifted and streets reopened immediately. The operation lasted for just over 30-minutes.
The street closures caused severe disruption to public transport, with several bus routes unable to complete their journeys along their regular city centre routes.
