Gardai in north inner Dublin have seized weapons and prevented at least two attacks on local figures suspected of drug-dealing. A sawn-off shotgun was recovered a week ago in the Buckingham Street area, and a week earlier uniformed gardai arrested two men after discovering balaclavas and a hatchet in a car in the same area.
Two men were arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, the law normally used in cases where terrorist activity is suspected.
It is now believed there may have been no IRA or other republican paramilitary involvement in the incidents.
According to Garda sources, a local criminal who has joined local anti-drugs campaigns is suspected of being behind the incidents.
It is suspected he and his associates may have been trying to pass themselves off as IRA or republican activists in carrying out attacks against drug-dealers. Local sources say the man had apparently been planning to kill or seriously wound a drug-dealer with the shotgun, which was found by gardai in Buckingham Village on August 24th.
Gardai have prepared a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions. There is suspicion locally about the sincerity of the man's anti-drugs stance. According to some sources, it is suspected that he may be working with other dealers who wish to spread their trade to the north inner city.
Gardai suspect that Provisional IRA members were responsible for an attack on another petty criminal and small-time drug-dealer from the area last November.
Gerard Moran (35), from Rory O'Connor House in Hardwicke Street, died when he was shot at close range with a shotgun as he delivered pizza in Drumcondra on November 21st. Mr Moran had a number of run-ins with anti-drugs activists and had threatened figures linked to the Provisional IRA.
IRA members were also suspected of being involved in gun attacks on houses in south Dublin last year and earlier this year. No one was injured in the attacks, which were seen as warnings to suspected drug-dealers.
According to gardai in the city yesterday, there is little evidence that the Provisional IRA is planning any significant violence against drugs-dealers.