PARENTS' fears that their children were taking a sinister drug in tablet form have turned out to be sweet nothing.
Numerous calls about an "unknown" tablet were received by the national poisons centre in Dublin. But the small, round, white tablets which caused such anxiety have turned out to be Polo Holes - small, circular mints billed as the missing centres of the long established "mint with the hole". Nestle Rowntree Ireland have been marketing the "holes" separately as a limited edition product for the past few months.
However, without the distinctive green and blue Polo wrapping, which is easily removed, the small, white sweets in the clear plastic tube look like tablets.
Ms Elaine Donohoe, of the Poisons Information Centre at Beaumount Hospital, Dublin, said most of the calls were from worried parents and school principals who had discovered them lying around. A number of pharmacies had also made inquiries. "People just did not know what they were," she said.
A spokeswoman for Nestle Rowntree Ireland said: "They have been very popular. We, were surprised to hear of the calls to the poisons centre. We received only two calls and they were not complaints, merely people raising the point. It was never our intention for people to think it was a tablet."