Two teens and woman held in pipe bomb probe

TWO teenage brothers and a woman in her 50s were last night being held by Gardaí in connection with a pipe-bomb attack on a house in Rathkeale early on Tuesday morning.

The arrests of the woman and the youths, aged 14 and 17, were made when a force of more than 30 gardaí under Supt Joe Roe and Det Inspector Tom O’Connor raided a house in the Fair Green area of Rathkeale at 7am yesterday.

The three are being held at garda stations in Newcastle West, Henry Street and Roxboro Road under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.

They can be held for 48 hours without charge.

The bomb attack was carried out at around 4am on Tuesday at a house in Ballywilliam, Rathkeale in which a widow aged 57 and her four adult sons were asleep upstairs.

The front door of the house was kicked in and the bomb exploded in the downstairs area causing major damage. None of the occupants was injured.

A second pipe-bomb found outside the front of the house did not explode and was defused by an army explosive ordnance disposal team.

The attack comes after a number of other attacks in the town. On Christmas morning a shotgun blast was fired into a caravan in which young mother and her two children were sleeping.

Gardaí suspect that the attacks are linked to extortion demands being made by one group of Travellers in the town against other Traveller families

According to local reports sums of between €10,000 and €20,000 have been demanded from a number of families.

Meanwhile, gardaí in Limerick are investigating a complaint of sexual assault made by a teenage girl.

The alleged incident is reported to have happened at a laneway near North Circular Road where a number of teenagers had been drinking.