A NEW Garda initiative against drug dealing in Dublin begins this morning. Named Operation Dochas (Hope), it involves extra uniformed patrols in the areas of the city where drug dealing is most prevalent.
The plan is aimed at focusing resources on street level dealing and includes a "fast track" analysis of seized substances, aimed at bringing charges more quickly against dealers who have been arrested. Short term checkpoints are to be mounted in housing estates as part of the scheme.
Gardai are also to be instructed to enforce public order legislation in an effort to clamp down on intimidation during aggressive street marches by some anti drug protest groups.
Warrant servers and other gardai who have operated in plain clothes but who are not detectives, are to be returned to uniform for the duration of the operation. Operation Dochas formally starts at 10 a.m. today and continues until the end of December. It is to be reviewed by Garda management in early January.
Gardai from the force's crime prevent ion units, which include plainclothes gardai in unmarked cars who act as back up to detectives, are to be deployed against dealers under the new plan. Between 300 and 500 gardai may be involved in the operation, among them 150 recently returned from Border checkpoints set up for the BSE crisis during the summer.
The plan has already been criticised by the Garda Federation, which represents about 2,500 gardai, mainly in Dublin. Mr Chris Finnegan, national secretary, said the plan shifted Garda numbers from important operations such as the crime prevention units. He said dealers would simply moved from one area to the next once the focus of Garda activity became apparent, and there appeared to be no overall strategy in the force or in Government to cope with them.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Democrats leader, Ms Mary Harney, at a conference organised by the party in Dublin yesterday, urged a stern approach to enforcing anti drug laws.
She said the nation had "collectively slipped into a state of paralysis where the extent of suffering caused by addiction and our compassion for addicts and their families is clouding our view of the necessary measures to counter and defeat the drugs culture".
"Compassion for the victims of the drugs epidemic must not get in the way of our efforts to ruthlessly eradicate the narcotics business from this country."
Drug dealers were "a bigger threat than the Provos in the 1970s", she said. "We had the political will and brought in tough measures to deal with that threat. We must do it again. Drug pushers are quickly becoming the mass murderers of modern Ireland."