Mr. Martin Callinan:

I have heard and been privy to those discussions but, in reality, nobody really knows. What we can do and what we are doing is targeting areas where we see a proliferation of drugs. For instance, there is a great deal of discussion and adverse comment about, for example, the centre of the city and the Liffey boardwalk in particular, and the inherent problems people face in their daily lives from people who are addicted to drugs congregating in these areas. Since we set up an operation in June two years ago we have managed to seize in excess of a 250,000 prescription drugs. We have also seized 14,500 - plus scheduled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. There are huge issues involved. This year alone we have searched more than 10,000 people in this area. It is areas such as this that we target at street level and we have secured several convictions. Since this operation started we have brought in excess of 2,500 people before the courts.