A suspicious package found at a postal sorting office is believed to be linked to the parcel bomb sent to a Scottish university, Ireland's justice minister has said.
The package, which was discovered in Limerick on Friday morning, had a similar stamp to a letter bomb sent to the University of Glasgow earlier this month.
A group calling itself the IRA claimed responsibility for the device, as well as for letter bombs sent to major transport hubs in London.
Read more: University of Glasgow: Bomb disposal experts carry out controlled explosion
The group claimed it posted five devices to addresses in Britain, but only four had been discovered at the time the claim of responsibility was sent to a Belfast newsroom.
The organisation, known to police as the New IRA, claimed one parcel, addressed to a British army recruitment officer, may not have been discovered yet.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan told RTE: "This is a despicable act.
"The sending of incendiary devices like this is totally unacceptable. I hope the people responsible are brought to justice."
Mr Flanagan said the item found in Limerick could be the fifth device.
He added: "We have reason to believe this could be the case."
A Garda spokesman said: "Shortly after 6am, Gardai in Henry Street received a report of a suspect package at the An Post sorting office, Dock Road, Co Limerick.
"The building has been evacuated and the army EOD team have been notified."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here