A Dublin anti-drugs umbrella group has called for the work of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) to be extended to cover smaller drug-dealers.
Ms Anna Quigley of Citywide, which aims to help reduce drug-related crime and improve conditions on local authority estates, praised the CAB's work in tackling the activities of large drug-dealers but said the bureau needed to be extended to local level.
"While people are very happy to see the CAB go after the major dealers, there's a need to apply the same approach at a local level. A lot of dealers are still living very well and presenting a really bad role model for young people in their communities," she told a conference on policing and the community.
Ms Quigley said community policing forums should be placed on a sounder footing. "There's no policy decision within the Garda that says these structures have to be co-operated with and worked with, and there's certainly no legislative basis to them."
Insp Noel Burke of the Garda told the conference that Dublin was a series of "urban villages where communities have a very strong sense of their own place". He said the anti-drug initiative, Operation Dochas, and the juvenile diversion programme were examples of initiatives developed in recent years in response to community needs.
It was important, he said, that criteria be set down for community policing forums.
"In the first instance you have to recognise that the policing of the State is vested in the Garda Commissioner and the deployment of resources is ultimately a decision for him. That is not to say that others having an input into policing, like community groups, shouldn't highlight issues that may necessitate a particular policing response or the deployment of resources in that area."
Mr Andrew O'Connell of the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD) said his organisation had found gardai unwilling to work in genuine partnership with community anti-drugs groups.
