Fatima Mansions, a place known to residents as the heroin supermarket

It was still bright on a cool summer evening and the herd was on the move. Behind net curtains and china ornaments the residents of the Fatima Mansions flats watched. They call them the herd because they move in packs, waiting until the word goes around that someone is selling. There are addicts, some pushers and those who do both. "They know he's due to go off duty soon," said one resident, nodding in the direction of the lone uniformed garda in the area between two blocks. Until his shift finished the herd played Tom and Jerry, as the residents call it, a game of avoid-the-cop until they had the place to themselves.

The presence of uniformed gardai in the south Dublin flats complex is a direct result of two shootings. A week ago five men in balaclavas walked into the area between the two blocks that have been virtually colonised by dealers. One of them fired a handgun in the air.

It was the second time in 48 hours, after a similar attack two nights before. There were stories that they made one man kneel and beg for his life.

Locals speculated that the attack was organised by a family against a dealer who had sold heroin to a family member. At least two of the men are believed to live in the flats. Gardai, however, believe the attacks were carried out by the INLA in a turf war over the heroin trade.

The Labour Party justice spokesman, Pat Upton, issued a statement condemning the shootings and asking why most of the media had ignored it. Had it happened in a middle-class housing estate there would have been blanket coverage, he said.

The night after the second shooting there appeared to be an attitude of business as usual. Teenagers stood on a stairwell in F block, with the stench of urine mixing with aerosol fumes. "Coke?" they asked. Outside the older group stood waiting and watching. Among them there was no laughter, and not much conversation. "If Fatima had to deal with its own drug users there would be no problem," according to John Whyte, a community worker who arrived in 1994 to set up a drug treatment programme. "But they're coming from all over the city." The programme treats 25 addicts, all of them living in the flats.

Heroin has turned parts of Fatima Mansions into a junkie paradise and a nightmare for its residents. There are benches where nobody sits, washing lines they can't use because their clothes would be lifted and play areas where children can find or fall on blood-filled syringes.

The situation has gone full circle a number of times. As one of the birthplaces of the Concerned Parents movement in the 1980s, the community responded in its own way to the growing problem.

Then the inner-city drugs marches in early 1996 pushed addicts and dealers into the flats and housing estates hidden from public view. Once they arrived in Fatima the drug dealing was contained behind the brown brick walls of the 14-block complex. The planners could not have designed a better layout for dealing, with at least eight exits from every open area between blocks and hundreds of stairwells and balconies.

"By the end of 1996 things were on the brink of going completely out of hand," Mr Whyte said. The Rialto Community Network responded by setting up a policing forum to involve the community. Now most residents would be happy to see a Garda station in the flats, and relations with gardai are improving.

Their community garda is known by his first name and respected. He still patrols the complex despite being beaten up. But the drug dealing continues. "This is an easy place to buy heroin. There is law, but no order here," is one observer's view.

Much of normal life goes on indoors. In the community centre there is hollow laughter among the women when they talk about their neighbourhood as Dublin's main heroin supermarket. "It's Crazy Prices out there."

People working in the complex admire the community. "They are resilient like you can't imagine," Mr Whyte said.

One of the most grinding problems is sleep deprivation. Dealing can go on until 4 a.m. and start again at 7 a.m. There are screaming matches on the balconies, rows over deals and a stream of customers to certain flats to buy drugs.

But there is another side to life. In the cheerful community centre the only newspaper cutting on the wall is a report of the St Patrick's Day parade, when they dressed up as fire devils, one of the few times Fatima featured in a positive news report. The blocks where the dealers don't live have clean stairwells and balconies, with the flats inside as spruce as any suburban semi.

There is a pride and refusal to give up among the women who work in the centre, with its creche for 16 two-year-olds and an active community employment scheme.

The young mothers who grew up in the flats remember their own childhoods when they played handball in the pram sheds, begging their mothers for another five minutes. Those people who have jobs outside the flats dread the days when Fatima is in the news, because the news is always bad.

They are angry about the crowds of addicts who descend on them; that their friends and families are afraid to visit; that the dealers treat them with contempt as obstacles; and that reporters only visit when there is bad news, demonising their home and sensationalising their everyday lives.

Every screaming headline describing the flats as a hell-hole is a blow to the people who run the football club, swimming classes, quilting groups and after-school clubs that glue the community together.

At the same time they are not blind to realities. "You've seen that Real TV programme. Well, this is Real Fatima," one woman said. At a meeting of the women's education project they talked about the day a school group came across three addicts injecting outside a window.

They asked about news of the woman who was taken off a balcony the night of the first shooting "in a body bag." Someone had heard that they revived her in St James's Hospital.

They talked about the guts it took for the quiet woman who walked into a neighbouring flat after knocking and giving the junkie codeword in the early hours of the morning and told the woman dealer living there to stop.

One woman who said three of her children had used and sold drugs said the culture of drugs was everywhere. Her nine-year-old "could show you how to roll a joint". Those who have used them can't stay off drugs "because they just have to put their hands out the window here to buy drugs." Her view is bleak. "All the old families, all the kids are on drugs and any family that escapes drugs is blessed."

Last year a development worker was assigned to Fatima Mansions, and since last November they have had a full-time community employment scheme organiser. At the end of the month they are hoping to move the creche to new premises, giving them more room for "tai chi and line dancing classes" or whatever they decide to do with the centre.

"There is a substantial number of people who want to do something about the flats and want to stay here," Mr Whyte said. A development plan is due for completion in September, and is expected to involve the demolition of some blocks.

A Government project has looked at Fatima as one of the places targeted for spending on heroin-affected areas. The results of the pilot project are expected soon. In the meantime the dealing continues and the community copes.