Security alert over after suspected pipe bomb is made safe in Cork

A security alert has ended after a suspected pipe bomb left in the front garden of a house on Cork's northside was made safe.

A garda investigation is now underway into another IED incident outside a house on the city's northside in recent years.

At least three other IEDs have been placed outside homes in Knocknaheeny and Churchfield in the last five years.

The alarm was raised at around 3pm today when the homeowner returned to house on the Kimore Road in Knocknaheeny and spotted a suspect device in his front garden. The house was unoccupied at the time.

The man contacted gardaí and members of the Defence Force's bomb squad were called in.

A section of the Kilmore Road was sealed off as ordnance officers moved in and made safe what's believed to have been a viable improvised explosive device (IED).

The components have now been handed over to gardaí for forensic analysis.

Local Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould condemned those responsible for planting the device.

"This was a viable device placed outside a house in broad daylight," he said.

"This is a busy road, it's on a bus route, it leads to one of Cork's largest employers, and children would be walking past at that time of the day, coming home from school.

"If anyone had picked it up, it could have caused carnage."