Gardaí in Dundalk say that their crackdown on fireworks is continuing and in the past two weeks they have seized illegal fireworks worth €15,000 in a number of operations.
The largest seizure was in a Dublin-registered van stopped at a checkpoint as it travelled southwards on the N1 outside Dundalk. Gardaí recovered 48 boxes of rocket-type fireworks and four boxes of bangers.
The same day a smaller seizure was made and last weekend three boxes of fireworks were recovered at Proleek, Ravensdale, just north of Dundalk. Operation Tombola, the annual targeting of criminal activity related to Halloween, is under way in the Border division. A Garda spokesman said that additional checkpoints were being established.
The spokesman said that gardaí now had the benefit of new legislation introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2006. "The new legislation is a great asset to gardaí - people who are in possession of fireworks can be prosecuted for committing a criminal offence," he said.