Separate operations in Cork, Dublin, and Wexford will have a “significant impact” on the supply of heroin, according to senior gardaí.
Community groups welcomed the operations, but stressed that cutbacks to local addiction, youth, and mental health services need to be reversed to help tackle the drug problem.
Among the 60 people arrested are members of an extended crime family, a convicted armed robber and a drug dealer who previously forced undercover gardaí to swallow heroin by threatening to kill them while holding a pair of scissors to their necks.
Det Chief Supt Michael O’Sullivan, the head of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said the operations involved “very significant arrests”. He said the bureau coordinated the operations over the last six months with searches of 50 homes by 100 officers in the last two days.
In Dublin’s south inner city, the operation — codenamed Tempest — led to the arrest of 26 young men.
In Cork City, Operation Emerson involved the arrest of 25 people, while in Wexford town, Operation Denver saw the arrest of nine people, including the father, brothers, and sisters of an extended crime family.
“In all three locations, we’ve had significant successes in disrupting and dismantling organised criminal groups distributing heroin,” Det Chief Supt O’Sullivan said.
Source: Cormac O'Keeffe, Irish Examiner, 11/06/15
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