Boy, 5, narrowly avoids blinding from parcel bomb

A five-year-old boy could have been blinded and seriously disfigured if a package containing an incendiary device had ignited after it was delivered to a family home, according to gardaí.

The boy picked up the package shortly after it was delivered to a house in a Cork suburb on Thursday by an unsuspecting postman.

The child passed the package onto his father who became suspicious and immediately contacted the gardaí.

Gardaí were forced to evacuate a number of houses at Kilnap Place, Farranree, while members of the Army’s bomb disposal squad rushed to the scene.

The alert was raised at 10.20am and the scene was declared safe nearly three hours later after the bomb disposal squad carried out a controlled explosion on the device.

A Defence Forces spokesman later confirmed it was a “viable improvised explosive device”.

A senior garda source said yesterday the device did not contain shrapnel but was an incendiary which, if it had ignited, could have caused serious injuries to the child.

“If it ignited with a flash it would have caused serious burns and even blinding,” the garda source said.

Gardaí are continuing their investigation into who posted the device.

The remains of the incendiary were handed over to gardaí by the bomb disposal unit and are currently being technically examined.

The Kilnap Place call-out was the 119th nationwide call-out made by the Army bomb disposal team so far this year and it was the 60th viable device they have dealt with.

Surgeons, meanwhile, are still trying to repair the hands of PJ Duffy, who lost seven fingers when he picked up a pipe bomb outside his front door in Co Wicklow five weeks ago.

The five-year-old lost four fingers on one hand and three on another when the device exploded in his hands. He also received burns to his arms, head and face, but was partially protected by a bicycle helmet.

PJ had left his house on Sycamore Drive in Newtownmountkennedy at 8am on Jun 20 and was about to cycle to school when he innocently picked up a tube left outside the front door.

It is understood that surgeons at Crumlin Children’s Hospital have not yet been able to reattach any of his fingers. They are working on other options, such as skin grafts, including from his toes, to try and rearrange his hands.

Gardaí are no closer to establishing a motive for the attack and have again appealed to anyone with information to come forward.

Meanwhile, the Army bomb disposal team also made safe a quantity of the unstable chemical dinitrophenylhydrazine at St Finbarr’s Seminary, at Farranferris, Cork City on Thursday night.

Gardaí had earlier sealed off a disused school laboratory after the chemical was discovered during renovations.

Dinitrophenylhydrazine is routinely used in laboratories around the country but can become unstable over time.