Grizzly
Interesting question you pose regarding how well Ireland is prepared for terrorist threats. I do not know the answer, but I would highlight that as a country our security forces do have many years of experience in dealing with terrorism and subversive elements, probably more so than a lot of other countries.
How well does that experience translate into the current threats posed by those willing to take their own lives and perhaps driven by social and moral values different than ours is open to debate.
We should take into account that the goal of terrorism is to terrorise and raise the profile of one's cause. So by its very nature terrorism will make news. Even unsuccessful attempts that make the news, like todays, can be deemed successful. While the ultimate goal of destroying the targets may not have been achieved, the goal of terrorising the general population has been successful. Also, to paraphrase, the terrorist needs to be lucky only once, the security forces have to be lucky all the time.
Regarding today's incident and whether or not it was "crying wolf", I suspect that someone had to think long and hard about the economic, social and personal upheaval shutting down one of the busiest airports in the world and disrupting numerous flights would have before giving the green light for the operation.
Personally I would rather the hysteria generated by events such as today's rather than a post terrorist atrocity and everyone blaming security and intelligence forces for not acting in time to prevent it.
C
Had to laugh when saw this. Anyone remember the anthrax scare? Bomb squad flying around Dublin 'decontaminating' letters?