You might recall a few months ago when Intel's plant in Leixlip was shut down due to a hoax bomb threat.
The threat was called in by an employee's friend who didn't want to have to go into work the next morning. Colin Hammond, 21, made two 999 calls claiming that Islamic State had planted bombs somewhere on Intel's campus. As Hammond's solicitor explained, both he and his friend, who working in Intel as a subcontractor, were drinking and taking pills when his friend asked Hammond to call in the bomb threat so he wouldn't have to work.
Hammond's friend paid him €30 to make the call. As he explained it, his friend "hates work and I made a phone call so he wouldn’t have to go to work.”
The hoax threat shut down the M4 Motorway, diverted air traffic over the plant and lost Intel almost 6,000 hours in production time. Over 4,000 staff members were forced out of the plant and Garda bomb disposal units and members of the Emergency Response Unit descended on the plant when the threat was made.
Yesterday, Judge Martin Nolan called Colin Hammond "profoundly stupid" and ordered him to complete 200 hours of Community Service in lieu of two years in jail. Hammond was charged with and plead guilty to making a false report giving rise to apprehension for the safety of persons or property.