The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said the person who made the bomb which killed 28 people in Omagh last Saturday was the same person who manufactured the bomb which exploded in Banbridge earlier in the month, injuring 35 people.
"Although the forensic examination is still going on, it appears to be the same hand, the same bomb-maker, as made the bomb at Banbridge, and a few more as well."
Mr Ahern told RTE radio that the death toll in Omagh could have happened in any of those as well. "There were about nine others that we were lucky enough to intercept."