THERE was a certain symmetry to events in Kildare Street yesterday. In the Dail, TDs dragged in from the summer sunshine were processing the new laws, some of which will prove to be the most far reaching anti crime measures the chamber had ever seen.
Across the road in Buswell's Hotel, the Dublin City Wide Campaign Against Drugs had gathered drug addicts parents so they would be available to meet members of the Oireachtas and explain to them the roots of the problems which had caused all this sudden activity in the Dail.
All of 56 of the 226 legislators - a quarter - managed to make it the 30 yards across the road to Buswell's. Some were there to show support, some were just there for show.
Others came in because there is a growing realisation that unless the people in Buswell's are among those whose stories are heard and understood, no workable solutions to the drug problem will be found.
If their calls for significantly more money to be spent on education and treatment and improving life in deprived areas are not heeded, TDs will be processing emergency crime packages for many summers to come.
A new £40 million prison at Wheatfield is planned. Overcrowding in prisons is so serious that the State clearly needs another prison, according to Fergus McCabe of the Campaign.
"But if governments don't start spending the same sort of money reducing the demand for drugs, then they will just keep building one new prison after another", he suggested.
That said, there was something important happening in the Dail. It had taken the death of a journalist - of all people - to focus Government attention on the extent of the drug problem and growing power and fearlessness of the related organised crime gangs.
Years of deaths of drug addicts and "contract killings" where it appeared criminals were shooting each other dead, had brought nothing like the same reaction.
To be fair to the TDs, their in ertia (save for a few from mainly Dublin constituencies) was mirrored in the wider State bureaucracy. Revenue officials and gardai seemed unable to co operative effectively to identify and seize drug barons' assets.
Now there is to be a special Criminal Assets Bureau made up of gardai, Revenue and Social Welfare officials to ensure that co operation begins in earnest. Those in the bureau will be able to retain their anonymity in court proceedings so that - it is hoped - the personal intimidation which has occurred in previous investigations can be avoided.
The Proceeds of Crime legislation is another far reaching move. This legislation - which originated in a Fianna Fail Bill - requires a criminal suspect to prove to a court that any cash or other assets has been legally earned.
The Disclosure of Certain Information for Taxation and Other Purposes Bill, as complicated as its name suggests, allows for ministerial orders to be made requiring accountants, solicitors, estate agents and other professions to report "suspicious" transactions, much as banks and building societies already have to report "suspicious" lodgments.
There will be much argument over this measure before it happens - if it happens. But a Government which was so keen to look active that it even accepted opposition legislation can hardly be blamed for throwing this idea into the pot as well.
There is evidence too of a new approach by the gardai. Yesterday the Minister for Justice said she had agreed to a suggestion by the new commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, to have a Garda officer based in The Hague and another in Madrid.
Due to the risk of offending our EU partners during the Irish presidency, it cannot be stated officially that the bulk of the drugs found in Ireland seems to come from the Netherlands, and that much of the rest comes from North Africa through Spain.
The Commissioner's request suggests a new emphasis on tracing the sources and tracking the progress of these illicit cargoes.