The Government has stepped up its fight against cocaine barons with an EU offensive on drug trafficking in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Republic is one of seven countries which yesterday set up a new Portugal-based centre to monitor narcotics shipments passing into European waters.
Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan said the taskforce would make it more difficult for cartels to smuggle cocaine into Ireland.
"The pooling of resources will lead to vastly increased monitoring of suspicious vessels heading towards Irish waters," he said at the launch of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre in Lisbon. "This in turn will lead to increased seizures and a reduction in the supply of cocaine."
The new centre will bring together law enforcement agencies from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland to combat illegal drugs shipments.
Ireland will be represented by the Garda Drugs Joint Task Force, the Customs Service and the Naval Service, while Europol and the US Joint Inter-Agency Task Force will also have a role.
The centre, established by a treaty signed yesterday by ministers from each participating country, will focus primarily on transatlantic drug smuggling routes from Latin America.
"The prevalence of cocaine in Irish society has increased enormously in recent years," said Mr Lenihan. "As well as the obvious social and health consequences, this trade also fuels organised and gangland crime, and ultimately leads to a futile loss of life.
"The opening of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre will make the EU a much more hostile place for cocaine traffickers to operate."
The establishment of the new drugs taskforce follows several recent high-profile drugs seizures by gardaí. The largest seizure of heroin in Cork city was made by gardaí on Friday night. A 26-year-old man was found with €200,000 of the drug in a car in the city centre.
Gardaí in Dublin last Tuesday seized about 200kg of cannabis worth an estimated €1.5 million during raids across the city.
Officers from the Garda National Drugs Unit stopped a car near Chapelizod in Dublin and found 40kg of cannabis. In a follow-up search of an apartment in the Dublin 8 area, a further 160kg of the drug was discovered. - (Additional reporting PA)