Some €85,000 worth of cannabis was trawled up off the seabed west of the Aran islands in a joint operation involving the Naval Service, Customs and a Donegal fishing vessel over the weekend.
The accidental discovery was made by the Killybegs twin-rig trawler, Progress II some 60 miles (96km) west of the islands, when it identified parcels in its nets during the routine hauling of a trawl on Friday.
The vessel's skipper contacted the authorities immediately, and the Naval Service patrol ship, LE Aisling, made a rendezvous with the Progress II on Friday night. Eight parcels of cannabis weighing one kilo each were taken by the ship, under the command of Lieut Cdr Neil Manning, into Galway early on Saturday morning, where the consignment was handed over to six Customs officers and gardaí from Salthill.
The fishing vessel agreed to continue searching the area on Saturday, trawling in depths of over 100m. It was joined by the Customs Service cutter, An Suirbhear, which has been involved in the continuing search for a missing bale of cocaine off the west Cork coast since the accidental €100 million haul in Dunlough Bay earlier this month .
During this weekend's trawls in a sea area between 60 and 80 miles west of Aran, three more batches of cannabis weighing about a kilo each were recovered. When several further trawls yielded "nothing but fish", the operation was suspended, a Customs spokesman said.
An investigation into the haul is being conducted by Salthill Garda station, focusing on tracing the source and date of the cannabis. Although comparatively small in value, it represents the second time this month that drugs have been found at sea.
Just over 10 years ago, a Jamaican registered ship which ran into difficulties off the Aran islands was seized by the Garda's Criminal Assets Bureau, on suspicion of having been involved in smuggling illicit substances.
In spite of a thorough search of the 120ft (36.6m) Aegir in Galway docks in February 1997, nothing was found. However, Garda sources said that they believed the ship was on its way to collect cannabis from a Pakistani ship off the west coast of Africa.
The State deported five crew who had been held under drug trafficking legislation for questioning in Galway. Gardaí had hoped to prosecute several of the crew, who had allegedly made admissions about the ship's route and its plans to take 30,000kg of cannabis from another ship off the Cape Verde islands. The case against them was rejected by the DPP and they were deported.