Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy P.J. Sheehan. It is important to let Deputy Sheehan have his say on this incident as it took place a couple of hundred yards from his home.

Last night and today people have being following the extraordinary story of attempted drug smuggling off the west Cork coast, near Goleen. Garda sources now say that up to 1.5 tonnes of baled cocaine have been recovered from the sea next to an upturned inflatable boat. This, the largest drugs haul in the history of the State, happened by chance and because of the weather and the incompetence of the gang of men involved. The street value of the enormous haul of drugs is estimated to be as high as €300 million. Make no mistake, this should be given the priority of a major international drug smuggling incident. We need to learn lessons from what happened and put measures in place to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

It is not the first time we have seen seizures of drugs off the south-west coast. In July 1991, cannabis worth €9 million was seized in Courtmacsherry; in July 1993 cannabis worth €25 million was found off the Clare coast; in September 1996 cocaine worth €125 million was found on a trawler in Cork harbour; in September 1998 cocaine worth €61 million was found on a catamaran yacht in Kinsale harbour; and in November 1999 cannabis worth €18 million was discovered off the south-west coast by the Naval Service. Now, cocaine worth between €200 million and €300 million has been found in Goleen. It is not surprising, therefore, that senior customs officers state Ireland is perceived as a soft touch for criminal gangs for their drug trafficking activities in the EU.

The Taoiseach's response today in the Dáil was nothing short of pathetic. Apart from saying that we were talking to our EU partners about how best to counteract drug smuggling and announcing the setting up of a monitoring centre in Lisbon, he had little or nothing to say about Ireland's state of preparedness to combat drug smuggling. Yes, we do need to work with other countries which face similar challenges, but we can certainly do something more ourselves within Irish waters in the meantime.

The truth is that we are, indeed, a soft touch for drug smugglers in having an open, largely unpatrolled coastline. We have a competent but small Naval Service, an under-resourced coastguard and an inadequate customs structure in terms of policing and monitoring activity along our coastline. If this incident, which happened purely by accident, does not jolt us into a frank and honest debate about how we invest in the fight against drug trafficking then what will?

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