The Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) was named in the Dail yesterday as having posted a threatening notice in a Dublin city flats complex.

Mr Gay Mitchell (FG, Dublin, South-Central) said the party's Dublin branch warned those involved in "drug dealing and abuse" would be referred to the "local committee" and could face notice to leave the flats complex.

He called on the Government to bring those who sought to put themselves in the place of the law to account. He also demanded that adequate resources should be provided to the Garda and Dublin Corporation estate management to "ensure that any drug dealing or anti-social behaviour is effectively counteracted".

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, who named the complex as Fatima Mansions, said it was the most intensively policed complex in the Kevin Street district and local resident groups "acknowledge a vast improvement in the drug problems of the area".

He said there were "elements" who saw themselves as "self-styled, and I say this loosely, protectors of the community. These people have a well-established agenda of trying to discredit the lawfully established public agencies and who, because of their own perception regarding what they are doing, feel that they are immune to the law when they go about their activities."