At around 9am this morning, police confirmed an anonymous telephone call indicated a device has been left near the electoral office in Banbridge. Bridge Street in the town was evacuated.

The town centre was closed off to members of the public and traffic.
Following extensive searches, nothing was found. The town centre resumed to normality within hours.

Commuter problems

A bogus telephone call also caused disruption on the Belfast-Dublin railway line which was closed for a period between Portadown and Newry. The line was operational again at 10.30am following searches which found nothing untoward.

In Belfast, a police spokesperson confirmed a package was found inside economic development agency, Invest NI's headquarters on Bedford Street shortly after 9.30am.

After an examination, officers deemed the package as not being suspicious.

Conference

The security alerts came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and newly appointed Irish premier, Brian Cowen arrived in the Province as part of the US investment conference.

The incident at Invest NI headquarters took place only metres from US delegates who were meeting at nearby Blackstaff Square. The agency played a pivotal role in organising the three-day event.

Alert

An Invest NI spokesperson confirmed a security alert had taken place only causing "minor disruption".

He said: "Invest Northern Ireland can confirm that there was a security alert at its headquarters at Bedford Square on Thursday morning.

"Security services were immediately notified and dealt with the situation. At all times management acted on PSNI advice. The incident caused only minor disruption on the ground floor and did not impact on the day-to-day business of Invest NI," he added.

Banbridge councillor Ian Burns was forthright in his opinion that the market town hoax alert was designed to cause maximum disruption and was carried out by republican rogue elements.

"I don't know the reasoning behind it but I suspect elements were aiming to cause mischief while the economic conference was ongoing," the UUP man said.

"This is typical of dissident republicans and I would obviously condemn it outright."