HEROIN CRACKDOWN IS VITAL

The Minister in charge of the Government's National Drugs Strategy said he
was unhappy with the number of heroin seizures.

Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Eoin Ryan, said he was
concerned that while overall drug seizures increased, the number of heroin
seizures actually fell.

"Considering heroin is doing the most damage, I would like to see more
heroin seizures by gardai. There's an awful lot of seizures of other drugs.
That's good work, but I'd definitely like to see more heroin seizures."He
said he realised heroin arriving in smaller packages than most other drugs,
and was therefore more difficult to find. But he added: "I would love to
see the level of heroin seizures way up, much higher than it is at present."

Statistics for last year show the number of heroin seizures fell from 1012
in 1998 to 767 in 1999. But the total number of drug seizures increased
from 7648 in 1998 to 8056 in 1999.

A garda drugs source said they had little choice in what drugs they seized.
"We don't decide to seize cannabis and not heroin, we seize what
consignment of drugs we get intelligence about.

"Often it is not clear from the intelligence what they drugs are, so we
mightn't know until we seize it. We are constantly trying to develop good
intelligence, which is extremely difficult." He pointed out that seizures
of heroin had improved significantly in recent years. The statistics show
there were 599 heroin seizures in 1997, 664 in 1996 and 209 in 1995.

Minister Ryan was speaking yesterday at the first meeting of the Government
appointed National Advisory Committee on Drugs.

The 19 member committee -- made up of experts, department officials, gardai
and representatives from voluntary and community groups -- will conduct
research into the area and advise the Government.

The chairman of the committee, Dr Des Corrigan of Trinity College Dublin,
said the body would gather together existing information and conduct
research to fill in the gaps.

"Most importantly we will try and make sense of all the information and
interpret it for Government."

He said an interim committee had already agreed a three year working
programme, prioritising key areas.

"For example, we still don't know the extent of problem heroin use and drug
related deaths. We need to understand why these deaths are occurring.

"We also need to evaluate just how effective prevention programmes and
treatment programmes are."

Minister Ryan said the committee -- which will receive pounds 1 million in
funding per year -- will operate independently of the Government.