Northern Ireland faces a cocaine “epidemic”, after new figures revealed that its use has tripled in just four years.

And of even more concern, the figures — compiled by the Drug Use in Ireland and Northern Ireland: 2006/2007 Drug Prevalence Survey — show that five times as many women are now using cocaine compared to 2003.

The news comes as over £400m of the drug was seized in a major Garda and Irish armed forces operation on Friday.

Security sources told the Belfast Telegraph that, if the haul had not been seized, then a significant amount of the drug would have been smuggled into Northern Ireland.

And the statistics have prompted one Belfast community worker to warn that drug use has now reached epidemic levels and that heroin is now being seen on our streets.

Another drug worker said she has seen a 40% rise in the number of drug users seeking help with their addictions.

The report revealed that more than one in 20 adults in Northern Ireland, between 15 and 64, have used the drug compared with just over 1.5% of the population four years earlier.

The largest single increase of cocaine use came among women with more than five times as many admitting to

using the drug in 2006/2007 compared with 2003. These results are mirrored across the border.

The survey was commissioned by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD) in Ireland and the Public Health Information and Research Branch (PHIRB), within the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) in Northern Ireland.

The report found that use of cocaine increased among all adults in Northern Ireland aged 15-64 from 1.6% in 2002/3 to 5.2% in 2006/7.

Community workers in Belfast are concerned that these figures underplay the real depth of the problem.

The Reverend Brian Madden who works with drug users and addicts in the Tigers Bay area of Belfast today said he is desperately worried about drug use in the city.

“I would say we are in the middle of a epidemic. The amount of cocaine usage is just incredible. I know guys out there who go out and take a drink and can’t do it without a snort of cocaine,” he said.

“The amount of cocaine usage is just incredible. I know guys out there who go out and take a drink and can’t do it with out a snort of cocaine,” he said.

Mr Madden, who works with the Loughview Community Action Partnership, said the problem is due to the changing security situation.

“With the breakdown of paramilitary groups there is a lot of criminal gangs coming in a filling the void. There’s no fear of retribution now and people are just taking it upon themselves to deal drugs. The problem is that when people are making money like this it is hard to stop them,” he added.

He said that he and his colleagues are starting to see heroin on the streets.

Mr Madden said: “There is a lot of information out there but there are not enough people on the streets dealing with this problem.”

Claire Armstrong the director of the Northern Ireland Addiction Service deals with people seeking treatment for their dependency. She said: “We have seen about a 40% increase in the number of people coming to us for help, particularly young males. The figures are reflecting a trend for increased usage of cocaine in Northern Ireland. We are hearing a lot more talk of cocaine these days wheras before it would have seldom been talked about.”

She said the drug is becoming more socially acceptable in some circles and the wider implication of this is that people fund their drugs with crime.

She said: “We have clients that are spending between £500 and £1000 a week and that habit is often funded through crime.”

The PSNI is approaching this problem by tackling the source, namely dealers and smugglers. Their latest figures show that the total number of drug seizures in the region has increased by 14.6%. But while the number of cocaine busts has risen from 278 to 405 a year, the real amount of cocaine taken off the streets has fallen by half.

A PSNI spokeswoman said: “The Drug Squad and An Garda Siochana National Drug Unit work very closely on cross-border operations and have achieved some significant success. Criminals involved in Drug Trafficking cooperate at local, national and international levels to secure their supplies of controlled drugs. Borders, including North & South Ireland are not an impediment to this criminal activity.”

He added that the PSNI Drug Squad has made seizures in specific areas, chosen by smugglers as distribution points for markets elsewhere in the province.