DRUGS worth more than £3 million have been seized since the start of Operation Dochas, the Garda anti drugs initiative which began last year, according to the latest Garda figures.
The figures also reveal that 5,007 arrests have been made since the start of the operation, 21,500 on street searches have been carried out and over 8,000 vehicle checkpoints have been mounted.
Mr Tom King, the Assistant Garda Commissioner, said that the drugs seized so far were mainly cannabis and heroin, with cocaine accounting for about only 1 per cent of the total.
Mr King was addressing a seminar in Dublin City University organised by Ballymun Community Links Against Drugs (CLAD). He'd described the co operation elicited by CLAD - which includes representatives of the local community, the Garda, Dublin Corporation and the Eastern Health Board - as a "beacon" to other communities facing similar drug problems.
He said that the days when Ballymun had been neglected were now over. A co ordinated effort, underpinned by the £179 million development plan proposed for the area, would ensure that Ballymun became a "living, working environment" for all its residents.
Mr Sean O Cionnaith, the secretary of CLAD, warned that unless "real and meaningful jobs" were, created in Ballymun there would still be a "crisis of deprivation and hopelessness" leading to drug taking and drug pushing.
"Young people have been dying and their parents have been burying them quietly", he said. "In Ballymun, 60 per cent of our people are unemployed, three times the national average. There is deprivation and poverty, but the community is working together to challenge and tackle the problem."
Mr Tony Byrne, a spokesman for CLAD, emphasised that the organisation had been formed to support residents who were prepared to stand up to drug addicts. "Most of these members are mothers and young girls. CLAD members are not vigilantes and do not provide muscle."
According to Ms Marie McKay, of the Eastern Health Board, the EHB's methadone programme at Domville House, Ballymun, now has 87 clients daily, with a further 57 on a waiting list. The "detox" programme has 30 clients, with 80 on a waiting list. Many of these are young people engaged in smoking heroin. The interim programme, which was set up to reduce waiting time, has 19 clients, with a further eight awaiting admission.
There are estimated to be about 300 addicts living in the Ballymun area, a number of whom are as young as 12.