SPECIAL REPORT, DAY 1: Scourge of heroin - Onus on city council to hit dealers

THE relentless spread of drugs throughout Ireland, and their ready availability from one end of the country to the other, are worrying developments.

The scale of the problem is illustrated by the fact that gardaí will tonight hold a special joint policing committee meeting in Cork to discuss an alarming surge in the use of heroin.

As one city councillor chillingly put it, “you can almost dial for heroin in Cork now”. Despite increasing supplies of this so-called ‘recreational drug’ being smuggled into the country from Mexican cartels and growers in Afghanistan by Irish gangs with a track record of extreme violence, Ireland’s drug problem is by no means confined to any single region — it is a crisis of national proportions that affects people in every city, town, and village.