The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said he was "appalled" by what victims of the ongoing spate of loyalist pipe-bomb attacks had told him at a meeting in Dublin yesterday. Mr Cowen met a delegation of five recent victims accompanied by Sinn Fein Stormont Assembly Member, Mr Gerry Kelly, who described the attacks as amounting to a "pogrom".
Mr Cowen said: "These cowardly attacks, no matter which community is the target, endanger the lives of ordinary members of the community and their children and must be brought to a halt. They are to be utterly condemned. I am appalled at the detail of what I heard."