Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Generally speaking, we need to be careful about the language that gets used in this domain. There is a lot of noise around the place about weakest links and all the rest of it. In terms of drugs, there was a very successful intervention last September involving Army Rangers, the Air Corps, the Naval Service, An Garda Síochána and Revenue. It was the largest cocaine haul in the history of the State. What struck me was, in the immediate aftermath of that there was a lot of negativity. There seems to be this knee-jerk response that we cannot praise them too much because there should have been additional this and additional that.

The primary responsibility for the prevention, detection, inception and seizure and controlled drugs is the customs service of the Revenue Commissioners who do fantastic work. They have two Revenue customs cutters to patrol the coastline. The Naval Service and An Garda Síochána are all involved, collectively.

Generally speaking, on drug interdiction it is all about intelligence, collating it and working with others. The ship we interdict here - it is not by accident that it is interdicted. There is a lot of work early on in the chain and a sequence of events has happened. People are monitoring at different parts of the journey and in different jurisdictions. We need to understand that.

Our fisheries section can monitor the seas now, our exclusive economic zone, and can remotely circulate from Haulbowline on a 24-7 basis.

Our two new C295 planes give us very advanced technology that we did not have before in terms of maritime surveillance. It is not just about ships; it is about a whole lot of other things.

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