There have been many successes in the fight against drug-smuggling along the State's coastline, but the threat is ever present, and growing.
One conservative estimate is that drug-runners worldwide are dealing annually in at least £175 billion, and drug barons have earmarked the Irish coastline as an easy target.
Before the Customs National Drugs Team was set up in January 1993, the rugged coastline from Wexford to Kerry was wide open. There was a lack of manpower, patrol vessels and funding to combat drug-smuggling.
Not long after the agency was established it had its first success when a ship entering Cork Harbour dropped 50kg of cannabis resin overboard.
It was picked up by a prominent member of a Cork drug-dealing family in a speedboat, but Customs officers were waiting, and after a chase he was caught.
The drugs, worth £500,000, were incinerated at the furnace in Irish Steel.
The size of seizures over the past seven years shows the problem the authorities face.
In May 1993, £1.5 million worth of cannabis resin was found buried in the sand at Rosscarbery Beach, west Cork. In June of that year the Garda found 700kg of cannabis resin in Tragumna Beach worth £7.5 million.
Soon afterwards, cannabis worth £1.1 million was found in a ditch close to the beach.
In June that year the Brime was escorted into Fenit harbour, Co Kerry, by the Naval Service. It had £20 million worth of cannabis on board. In November-December 1993 fishermen working off the Kinsale gas-rigs netted £12 million worth of cannabis.
In August 1994 a further £6 million worth of cannabis had been discovered on the Galway coast, and by November, again off the Kinsale gas field, fishermen netted more cannabis, valued at £260,000.
In March the following year, 20kg of cannabis, worth £200,000, was washed up at Fanore Point, Co Clare.
In September the authorities had recovered another washedup haul, worth £2.1 million, at Baginbun and Carnivan Bay, Co Wexford.
In October 1995, in the same area, cannabis worth £900,000 was lifted from the seabed by fishermen.
In May 1996 fishermen working in the gas-rigs area netted cannabis worth £760,000.
In September 1996, in Cork Harbour, the local intelligence network, organised by the Customs Service, had another success.
A suspicious vessel was reported and investigated and was found to have £183 million worth of cocaine on board.
In November 1996 cannabis resin worth £17.7 million was found on a pleasure craft in Kilrush harbour, Co Clare.
In 1998 a cocaine haul worth £48 million was seized from a catamaran in Kinsale harbour, Co Cork.
These successes are mainly due to growing co-operation between the Customs Service, the Garda and the Naval Service.
However, on more than one occasion the keen eye of a local who believed something was not right with a vessel has led to drug seizures.
The west Cork coastline has become a focus of attention for drug-runners. The latest haul of cannabis, worth £15 million, which was seized and brought into Schull, is a case in point.
If you ran a straight line on the map from Schull to Dingle, the passage on a pleasure craft wouldn't be too long, or too arduous.
But, as I have seen on a Garda intelligence map, the indentations on the coast make this trip more or less 500 miles. How are the authorities to police all these little crannies? Are the resources there to outfit a coastguard service, US style, which could make a rapid response? They are not.
In a famous drugs haul within the inner harbour in Cork some years ago, an acquaintance who had been sailing for the day with friends spotted something suspicious. Like all sailing men, he had been enlisted to inform the authorities of anything unusual. He did so, and a drugs haul followed. Nothing wrong with this system, but that does not belie the fact that if we are to deal with the problem properly, the Government must provide the necessary funds to give out the message that drug-smugglers can be caught.
Also, there should be even more interaction between the agencies who are dealing with the problem.
There has been a clash of attitudes in the past between the Garda and the Customs, but the recent haul in west Cork showed what could be achieved when these agencies work together.
The Naval Service, the Garda and the Customs Service combined in a brilliant operation which netted £15 million worth of cannabis resin.
Another weapon is the Drugs Watch Scheme, which enlists the help of sailing enthusiasts and coast-watchers, who might be on the headland walking their dogs. In the latest cannabis haul, a telephone call to Customs officers in Bantry from an individual who felt that the converted trawler tacking up and down for some hours off a west Cork headland didn't seem quite right.
That call made all the difference, and the three agencies swung into action.