asked the Minister for Justice if he will state in respect of the period 1st January, 1972, to date (a) the number of explosions and fires caused by bombs and/or incendiary devices in the Republic (b) the number of bombs and/or incendiary devices reported and investigated and (c) the total number of such instances officially recorded by his Department; and if he will make a statement on the total estimated cost of damage to date.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers. - Bomb and Incendiary Device Incidents.
138.
In the period in question a total of 77 explosions and fires were caused by bombs or incendiary devices and the total number of reports made to the Garda and investigated by them in respect of bombs and incendiary devices were 115.
The Garda have no accurate information in relation to the cost of the damage caused by the incidents referred to.
May I ask the Minister for the origins of these instances? On the basis of information available to the Garda, could he give any indication as to the extent to which they were political or from individuals, concerned with arson, for example, or otherwise?
I would regard the causing of a bomb to explode in circumstances in which it causes damage as criminal, no matter what the alleged context was. So, in that sense I could not give any indication of how many were allegedly political but in the popular sense of that phrase certainly some of these happened in Border areas and presumably would be so described by some of the people involved but the proportion would be very small.