Police officials have said that hours before Queen Elizabeth II was to arrive in Dublin today, the army defused a pipe bomb discovered in a tote bag. The bag was in the luggage compartment of a bus on its way to the capital. Irish police are now on high alert after further scares are keeping them busy.

The device was found last night in the luggage compartment of a bus on the outskirts of Maynooth, near Dublin, and on its way to the capital. Irish police reportedly carried out a controlled explosion to secure it in the early hours of this morning.

The British Foreign Office moved quickly and reassured that the Royal visit would still go ahead.

The Queen will be joined by the Duke of Edinburgh and they have just landed in Dublin a little while ago. She is now the first British monarch to travel to the Republic in 100 years and since it gained its independence. Northern Ireland however remains part of the monarchy.

As part of her state engagement the Queen will lay a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance, which commemorates the men who fought for Irish freedom against the British.

Opinion polls have suggested the Irish are susceptible to her visit, and their own President Mary McAleese has put in a great deal of effort in her own preparations ahead of the visit.

Word on the street would seem to suggest otherwise though, and even with bomb scares happening on a regular basis in Ireland, tensions are at boiling points in some areas.

The visit is costing a reported €13 million and this is one of the reasons many Irish are rejecting the visit. More than 8 500 Irish police have been mobilised to ensure its success making it the biggest security operation in the history of the state.

In a television interview a political figure even went as far as saying that the bomb threats could just have been to intimidate the Queen, as yet more reports come in about a shopping centre now being evacuated too.

This also comes on the back of a statement issued by a spokesman for Scotland Yard after a bomb scare in London yesterday stating that “a bomb threat warning” was received but that it was “not specific in relation to location or time.”

That threat saw central points around Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace being cordoned before an unattended suitcase was destroyed.

[Source: SkyNews]