Former assistant garda commissioner Michael O’Sullivan, who is now Director of the Maritime Analysis Operations Centre, has said that a new report into the European drugs market reflects an increase in the use of cocaine which is “fuelling murderous feuds.”

Five men have been found guilty in Britain for conspiring to import 1.4 tonnes of cocaine on a yacht that was under surveillance by the Irish Navy and Air Corps as it travelled across 200 miles of Irish waters last August.