Heroin swoop impact on supply ‘will be significant’

Separate operations in Cork, Dublin, and Wexford will have a “significant impact” on the supply of heroin, according to senior gardaí.

Community groups welcomed the operations, but stressed that cutbacks to local addiction, youth, and mental health services need to be reversed to help tackle the drug problem.

Among the 60 people arrested are members of an extended crime family, a convicted armed robber and a drug dealer who previously forced undercover gardaí to swallow heroin by threatening to kill them while holding a pair of scissors to their necks.