Drugs worth an estimated €500,000 were seized by gardaí in a rural area of Co Tipperary as part of a Limerick-based surveillance operation, writes Éibhir Mulqueen.
Officers from the Limerick drugs squad discovered the cache, which contained a significant quantity of cocaine, along with ecstasy, heroin and cannabis, at a remote house near Newport, Co Tipperary. A rifle were also retrieved during the operation on Wednesday evening.
Earlier, a small quantity of drugs and a handgun were seized when three people, a couple and a 16-year-old male, were arrested as an attempted sale was being made in Limerick.
In a related development, gardaí at Ennis arrested a man at his home in north Clare at 1 a.m. yesterday and detained him under drug-trafficking legislation.
Chief Supt Gerry Kelly, of the Limerick division, said the haul was being forensically examined. The cocaine was divided into a dozen blocks, he said, and its street value would depend on its purity.