THE REAL IRA has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in Derry in the early hours of Monday morning, reports RTÉ.

The claim was made to the Derry Journal newspaper, and included a recognised code word.

The blast went off near to a branch of the Ulster Bank and Da Vinci’s Hotel on the outskirts of Derry city, shortly after midnight. A bomb had been placed in a Vauxhall Corsa.

Nobody was injured in the blast.

A one hour warning had been issued to the PSNI.

This morning on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland radio programme, Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness strongly condemned the attack - and later in the day called the people involved “conflict junkies” when speaking at the UK Conservative Party conference.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin also condemned the attack, calling the action “utterly wrong and entirely futile”.

Mayor of Derry Colum Eastwood said:

I do not know what these people are hoping to achieve. They say they love their country but they spend their time trying to destroy it.

Last month, the Real IRA warned it would attack “economic targets,” including banks and other financial institutions.