A GARDA investigation is under way after a nail bomb exploded outside a house on a Westmeath housing estate yesterday causing extensive damage to the front of the property and to a car parked in the driveway.
The occupants of the property, a couple and two children, were in bed when the device exploded at 1.30am, but they were uninjured.
The family, who are from Nigeria, were moved to alternative accommodation pending completion of the forensic examination at the scene on the Grange Park estate in Mullingar.
Garda sources said the device was of very considerable force and could have caused substantially more damage had it not been attached under the car’s engine.
“The main part of the engine took the brunt of it and it was very badly damage,” said one Garda source.
“We’ve had a high number of devices found around the country in the last few years but the vast majority haven’t exploded, so this attack is a worry for us.”
The motive for the latest incident is unclear. The Nigerian man living in the house has told gardaí he knows of no reason why his family would be targeted.
Gardaí will speak to members of the Nigerian community living locally to see if they can assist in establishing a motive.
Garda sources say the house may have been mistakenly targeted. A number of low-level criminals live in the estate. Sources said it was possible one of those people was the target, but whoever planted the device simply left it at the wrong house.
The same Garda sources said if the device was left at the wrong house, it is possible the incident is linked to a well-documented feud between families in Mullingar.
However, gardaí stressed there was no evidence at this point to link the attack to the feud, saying the estate has not been at the centre of feud-related activity in the past.
Gardaí in Mullingar received a number of calls just before 1.30am reporting a loud explosion in the estate.
When they went to the scene they found the damaged car and house extensively damaged by a bomb packed with nails left under the vehicle.
It is not clear at this stage if the device was a pipe bomb. The scene was sealed off and gardaí called the Army’s bomb disposal team.
Members of the Garda Technical Bureau carried out a full examination of the scene yesterday.
The use of explosive devices, mainly pipe bombs, has increased across the country in recent years. Devices have been found in Dublin, Limerick, Galway, Offaly, Westmeath and Clare. In only a handful of cases, all in Dublin, have the devices exploded.
The Army’s bomb disposal team were called out to investigate devices more than 150 times last year compared with 98 cases in 2007.
Gardaí believe most of the devices are being sold by former paramilitary figures to criminal elements.
