Politics

Family of Minister for Justice evacuated following hoax bomb threat

Helen McEntee’s husband Paul Hickey and the couple’s two children were removed from their home in Co Meath

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was not at home at the time, but gardaí removed the three occupants out and the Special Detective Unit conducted a search of the house. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Ronan McGreevy
Robert Kindregan
Sat Apr 27 2024 - 18:15

The husband and two children of Minister for Justice Helen McEntee had to be evacuated from their home following two hoax bomb threats, according to reports.

The bomb threats were made in separate phone calls, one to the Samaritans charity, and gardaí removed her husband Paul Hickey and their two boys, aged two and one, from their home in Co Meath this week.

Ms McEntee was not at home at the time, but gardaí removed the three occupants out and the Special Detective Unit conducted a search of the house. Nothing was found there.

According to Irish Daily Mail, gardaí regarded the threat with the “utmost seriousness” especially given tensions over the immigration issue at present.

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Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said on Saturday that the bomb scare was “disgusting”.

Speaking in Athlone at the Irish Pharmacy Union annual conference, he said, in relation to the incidents at Ms McEntee’s home and that of Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman, as well at the disturbances in Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow: “Even in the lifetime of this Government we have seen a very sinister change in this country ... I believe part of it is coming from within Ireland; I believe some of it is being orchestrated from outside Ireland. Social media is being used to organise but it’s also very clear that over several years now social media has been used to fool young men in the main, but anyone whose spending time on the internet, to feed them a narrative of a failed state.”

Sinn Féin TD Donnchada Ó'Laoghaire posted on X that the bomb scare against Ms McEntee was “appalling”.

He added: “Nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify this, or the worry it would have caused her, her husband and 2 small children. There’s no excuse under the sun.”

Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin posted: “Two infant children moved from their home because of bomb threats against their mother? Absolutely disgusting behaviour & inevitable consequence of inflammatory language being consistently used in the immigration ‘debate’.”

A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment on the incident. In a statement An Garda Síochána stated that it “does not comment on third-party material ... does not comment on security details relating to individual State officials or Government Ministers and does not comment on the detail of ongoing criminal investigations”.

However, a senior Garda source confirmed that the story was correct.

Earlier this year a convicted rapist who made a hoax bomb threat to Ms McEntee’s home from the Midlands Prison was told he would spend an additional two years in prison.

Michael Murray (54), formerly of Seafield Road, Killiney, Dublin, was found guilty of one count of knowingly making a false report giving rise to an apprehension for the safety of someone else while he was imprisoned in the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise on March 7th, 2021.

He also made the call through the Samaritans.

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Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times

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