Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I accept what Deputy O'Shea said. It was decided in the early 1990s to set up a joint task force comprising the Revenue Commissioners, who have primary responsibility in this regard, the Naval Service and the Garda Síochána. When intelligence is received on a possible drug importation into the country, the task force gets together to monitor the situation, to prevent the drugs coming in and hopefully to arrest and successfully prosecute the people responsible.

There is a view that we would detect more drugs if we had more ships. That is basically correct. Nevertheless, if one looks at the matter logically, taking into account the length of our coastline and the area covered by the exclusion zone, no matter how many ships we had we would still not be able to detect all the drugs coming into this country. Currently, the system is intelligence-led. When intelligence comes in, the task force is put together and everything follows on from there. I am always open to new suggestions if Deputy O'Shea has any specific proposals on further integration and co-ordination.

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