BRITISH police yesterday conducted a forensic examination of a phone-box which may have been used to deliver one of the two coded bomb warnings which caused chaos at the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday.
A telephone caller to RTE, using a recognised codeword, said the IRA had made the hoax calls to postpone the event which was held instead on Monday.
No devices were found in a lengthy police search of the track and surrounding area.
The IRA statement said: "The IRA were responsible for the disruption of the Grand National in England on Saturday.
"We remind John Major that had he given as much importance to the negotiating of an end to the conflict in Ireland over the past few years as he attaches to the disruption of a single sporting event a lasting peace settlement would have been closer and conflict and disruption a thing of the past."
The Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, said recent bomb threats and violence had made it more difficult for Sinn Fein to enter talks.
"This latest series of atrocities must affect the timescale of the process by which people will need to consider any declared ceasefire," he said.
"We can't expect people to sit down when across the table there are people who are threatening to supplement their democratic vote with Semtex and bullets and mortars."
Fingerprint experts and forensic scientists began an examination of the telephone box outside a McDonald's hamburger bar in Moor Lane, Crosby, at 11.45 p.m. on Sunday.
Police confirmed that the search was "in relation to one of the terrorist alerts at Aintree".
The bomb hoax, causing tens of thousands of spectators to spend Saturday night seeking emergency accommodation, was the culmination of a campaign to disrupt transport in the north of England.
Both the rail and motorway systems were disrupted for two days by a series of IRA bomb alerts.
In these cases, devices containing about 1 1/2lb of Semtex explosive were found. One device exploded on a railway line last week but caused no injury.
The attacks appear to undermine speculation about an IRA ceasefire before the British general election at the start of May.
But the latest campaign, while causing severe disruption and attracting considerable media attention because of the postponement of the Grand National, was clearly designed to avoid injury.
Senior security sources had reported that it was likely that the IRA could seek some form of "non-lethal" spectacular in the run-up to the British general election to draw attention to republican demands.
Such disruptive tactics also avoid the widespread condemnation that would follow IRA attacks where injury or damage was caused.
∙ The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, claimed yesterday that the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, shared a responsibility for the weekend events in Britain, including the disruption of the Grand National by the IRA, because of his "failure to respond to the peace process".
Mr Adams, speaking in Cavan, was also critical of the role of the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, in the negotiations.
He said he believed that if Mr Albert Reynolds were in charge of the Government greater progress would have been made.