Gardaí have seized around €600,000 worth of MDMA in Dublin.

Lethal synthetic alternatives to heroin are posing a growing threat across Europe, with rising reports of overdoses and deaths, including in Ireland, according to the EU drugs agency.

Gardaí have seized around €344,000 worth of controlled drugs and Zanax tablets in Kildare.

European drug experts report a “dramatic increase” in the potency of high-strength ecstasy tablets, including so-called ‘super pills’.

A psychologist at troubled Kids Company in England faces being struck off over allegations she gave MDMA to a patient in a nightclub toilet.

Ecstasy users are facing increased threats from tablets which, in the main, are purer and stronger but, in an unknown number of cases, are contaminated with toxic amphetamine chemicals.

It has emerged that a street drug thought to have played a part in the deaths of two men in Cork was responsible for the deaths of a number of other people across Europe.

A 49-year-old father who took possession of ecstasy worth almost €500,000 so that he could pay off his daughter’s so-called "drug debt" has been given a seven-year sentence by Judge Frank O’Donnell.

A man and woman remain in Garda custody this morning following two drug seizures in Co Laois and Co Tipperary yesterday.

A man accused of having almost almost €400,000 worth of ecstasy tablets in a car at Glanmire, Co Cork had a bail application refused in court today.