AN UNDERCOVER Garda operation, code named "Mid west", prevented a major armed robbery by IRA members in the Cork Limerick area shortly before Christmas. It led to the Government's retrenchment on the early release of republican prisoners from Portlaoise.
Senior Garda sources indicated that the IRA appears to have kept its unit in the south west fully active to protect major arms dumps in the region. The local units, gardai believe, had run short of cash and planned at least one major robbery to finance their activities.
IRA units in Kerry are also blamed for at least nine incidents in which cars, a motorcycle, a caravan and a boat were burned.
One such group detained the wife of a man lacing a drugs charge by blocking a road. Masked men forced the woman from her car at Farranfore on Tuesday, threatened her and set fire to the vehicle. At least one of the men was armed.
The other incidents in Kerry include the burning of a caravan at Bannagh Beach in November, the burning of a boat in Fenit and the burning of cars and a motorcycle in Tralee and Castleisland.
Kerry Concerned Parents Against Drugs (KCPAG), believed to be a covername for local IRA members, admitted responsibility for the incidents in calls to a local newspaper.
After the most recent incident the group warned that it would be "upping the temperature" in its activities against drug dealers in the south west.
Sources in Kerry say there has been increasing local concern about the spread of drug abuse there. One of the first ecstasy deaths occurred in Tralee two years ago. Cannabis and ecstasy are said to be readily available and harder drugs are also said to be coming into the area.
It is understood that the IRA warnings have been heeded by at least one drug dealer who has left the region after being threatened. It is said locally that the IRA set fire to £1,500 in cash belonging to another drug dealer.
Informed local sources rejected the theory that IRA members in the area might be mounting the attacks because they were coming under competition from rivals in a splinter republican group which gardai say is associated with Republican Sinn Fein. They also discounted reports in a Sunday newspaper last October that the IRA in Kerry was dissenting from the IRA leadership.
According to local sources the gardai detained two local IRA figures and warned them against vigilante activities against drug dealers.
As yet none of the killings of drug dealers in Dublin has been attributed to organised IRA action. Gardai investigating the spate of murders involving drug dealers in the capital have uncovered only a limited amount of IRA activity aimed at the drugs trade in the city.
In only one investigation into the Dublin murders, that of Gerry Connolly, shot dead in Ballyfermot, has a link been traced to a local figure who gardai believe has had IRA connections. But detectives believe that there may have been a personal motive behind this killing and that it was not part of an organised purge of drug dealers.
Most of the other Dublin drug related killings are still thought to be the work of Dublin criminals who have access to a growing arsenal of handguns and even machine guns.
Gardai in the Louth area recorded a number of punishment beatings of men believed to be involved in minor crime or drug dealing, in the Drogheda and Dundalk area, during last year.
Four men in Dundalk, two of them members of one family were abducted and severely beaten by local IRA members who accused them of drug dealing at the end of last year.
The beatings followed a local outcry about the ingress of drugs to the local community and the social side effects of increased theft and burglary. There was particular concern in the Dundalk area about the increased use of ecstasy among young people. Teenagers going to a Co Armagh dance club were reportedly sold ecstasy tablets before they boarded buses in Dundalk.
There have been no other significant outbreaks of anti drug activity in the Republic attributable to the IRA.
Garda sources confirmed that at least two of the beatings in Dundalk were certainly aimed at people suspected of involvement in drugs.
The rise in activity against drug dealers and criminals by the IRA coincides with what gardai believe is an increasing sense of frustration among the paramilitaries about the lack of political movement since the calling of the ceasefires.
There is considerable anger among republicans about British government delays in releasing prisoners and holding inclusive talks. Dublin's decision to hold back the latest tranche of prisoner releases from Portlaoise also caused annoyance.
The gardai and RUC acknowledge that drug dealers started to expand their activities after the paramilitary ceasefires, believing they were immune from attack by the IRA or loyalist paramilitaries. The police on both sides of the Border agree that the paramilitaries are unlikely to cede any control in their local areas to drug dealers or organised criminals.
Ironically, there are some indications that the concerted IRA and loyalist paramilitary attacks on drug dealers in Northern Ireland has led some northern dealers to move to Dublin. According to Dublin sources a number of Belfast dealers have been off loading drugs in Dublin, exacerbating the city's drugs problem.
The Northern dealers are said to have unloaded so much ecstasy in Dublin in recent weeks that the price has almost halved. The amount of cocaine on sale in working class areas of Dublin is also said to have risen considerably, although it is not clear if this is coming in from Northern Ireland.