A Belfast taxi tour company has slammed a cyber security event for issuing advice about Belfast which claimed black cab tours were "run by the IRA".
The advice was issued by a contractor for the CyberUK 2023 conference, Bray Leino Events, which is running in the city next week.
It also warned that English accents would not be welcome in some parts of the city.
Read more: Belfast Black Taxi tour ranked in Trip Advisor's Top 20 experiences in the world
Stevie Harper works with Cab Tours Belfast and said he was devastated when news of the claims emerged on The Nolan Show on BBC.
"I was sick to my stomach when I heard it, sick to the stomach," he said.
"We're a cross-community company and then I heard we were being linked to the IRA.
"We won an award there, 17th best thing to do in the world and the fourth in the UK and this company is turning around and saying you're members of the IRA?
"We've Catholics and Protestants working in this company here and I couldn't believe it when I heard the claim."
Cab Tours Belfast operates tours of the city's many murals and Stevie said they were proud of the fact that as a company, they worked across the communities in Belfast.
"We bring people into both communities, there's never any hassle, people love it and it's a big, big industry," he said.
"There's 170 cruise ships in the summer here and for that type of nonsense to come out, it's terrible.
"Are all of us in the IRA? I've never been in trouble in my life!
"It's totally wrong what they've come out with, it blackens all our names."
The BBC reported that the National Cyber Security Centre, which runs the event, had distanced itself from the comments made by the contractor it hired to organise it.
"This is not an NCSC document," the NCSC said in a statement to the BBC.
"It was sent in error by a contractor and contains significant factual inaccuracies. The document has been withdrawn."
Bray Leino Events told The Nolan Show in a statement: "Our priority is the welfare of our team, however we acknowledge some statements made in an internal document for event support staff have caused offence.
"We apologise and can confirm the document has been withdrawn."
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