Security alert at journalist's home

Mr Williams' car is towed away for forensic examination

A crime journalist with the Dublin based Sunday World newspaper, Paul Williams, has been the subject of a hoax security alert.

About 140 people were evacuated from houses near Mr Williams' home in the Walkinstown area, south of the city centre, while army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion.

A passing police patrol spotted a package underneath Mr Williams' car at about 0300 GMT on Friday.

The device, which was declared a hoax, contained wires, batteries, putty and a circuit board - but no explosives.

Mr Williams is one of Ireland's most high-profile and outspoken crime journalists.

His latest book, which was published last week, is understood to have angered a number of leading criminal figures in the city.

The incident was condemned by the National Union of Journalists in Dublin.

It is the second attack on the journalist in recent weeks.

In the previous incident, acid was poured over his car.

Mr Williams said he would not be intimidated

Speaking on Friday, he said both he and his family were fine and thanked friends and neighbours as well as the emergency services for their help.

"We are living in an era where organised crime seems to be taking off, and criminals are intimidating everybody and threatening everybody," he said.

"They are not going to intimidate or threaten me. They have killed two of my colleagues, and it is not going to happen any more."

The incident is the latest attack on journalists by gangs both in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.

In 2001, Mr Williams' colleague Martin O'Hagan, who was an investigative reporter with the Belfast office of the Sunday World, was shot dead near his home in County Armagh.

In 1996, Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin, was shot dead following a number of reports into the workings of the city's criminal underworld.

Her murder led to new legislation being introduced by the Irish Government which clamped down severely on drugs gangs in the capital.

Meanwhile, the number of gangland-linked killings in Dublin has risen sharply in recent months.

The victims have been mainly gang members with the number of shootings so far this year already double the 2002 total.