A bomb threat made to a school in Enniskillen on Tuesday has sparked anger.

Holy Trinity Primary School was one of seven schools in Northern Ireland to have received a chilling phone call warning that explosives had been left on the premises.

The threat came as children were making their way to the school and was later declared a hoax.

But it has since emerged that the school which is situated on Derrin Road and Mill Street did not inform parents of the threat for more than 24 hours later, and did so by text message. Other schools caught up in the threat evacuated children, the Holy Trinity Primary School did not.

In a message to parents, which has been seen by The Impartial Reporter, a spokesperson for the school said: “Like a number of schools yesterday, we received a malicious hoax call. The police attended and after a thorough check of premises, school continued as normal.”

But the response by Holy Trinity Primary School has been criticised by parents and politicians.

“I was horrified to find out from colleague at work that Holy Trinity was one of the schools which received a bomb warning,” said one parent.

“Parents have a right to know if their children are under threat and it is unbelievable that the school did not think that this was important.

“There seems to be no recognition that this was a serious failure by the school in not at least notifying parents that our children had been threatened,” she told this newspaper.

Sinn Fein Councillor Tommy Maguire described the approach by the school as “concerning.” “We would like to think that our children are safe when they go to school. This type of interruption could traumatise some children and is to be condemned whole heartily.

“It is concerning that the school chose this course of action. I am sure they have procedures in place for this eventuality but I would question if they followed them to the letter. There has possibly been a failure in their procedures in this case.”

Democratic Unionist Keith Elliott said he too was “very concerned” by the school’s response. “Speaking as a parent, if this would have happened in my child’s school I would have wanted to know about it a lot quicker than what has been done in this instance.”

“Speaking as a parent, if this would have happened in my child's school I would have wanted to know about it a lot quicker than what has been done in this instance. A text message from a school is suitable to inform parents about events, not a security alert,” he said.

SDLP MLA Richie McPhillips said places of education “should be places of peace.”

“It is an absolute disgrace. There seemed to have been a disjointed approach by schools across the North. It is a serious incident and if you had a child at that school [Holy Trinity Primary School] you would be very concerned, very worried that the school had not made contact,” he said.

PSNI Chief Superintendent Garry Eaton said: “Local police responded immediately, working with the individual school authorities to establish what the circumstances of the calls were and to put appropriate procedures in place to ensure the safety of both pupils and staff.

“This was obviously a very serious and worrying situation, particularly for the parents of pupils at the schools however after thorough police searches of all of the schools, no devices were found.”

Brian Treacy, the principal of Holy Trinity Primary School, was asked by The Impartial Reporter why parents of pupils at the school were not informed of the threat on Tuesday. In response, Mr. Treacy issued this newspaper with the same short statement that had been texted to parents yesterday.

The Education Authority failed to respond to our query.