On Wednesday, a private jet owned by businessman Jim Mansfield was flown to Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport in southern Belgium. When a man boarded the plane, Belgian police, working on a tip-off from gardai, arrested three people on board the plane and seized luggage containing 50kg of heroin. The plane was impounded. Weston, like most small airfields in Ireland, currently has no permanent customs presence, but this is to be reviewed in the wake of Wednesday's incident.

"You need to bear in mind the relative scale of the operations at these airports, " a Revenue spokesman told the Sunday Tribune. "We have a customs presence at Dublin airport 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and there will be some 20 million passengers passing through Dublin airport this year. There are 101 airlines operating in the airport and an expected 186,000 aircraft movements.

"All customs operations are risk-focused, and staff deployed to combat areas of greatest risk. The level of activity at our regional airports is constantly monitored from a risk perspective. Revenue will, of course, review their risk assessments in light of the reported heroin seizure in Belgium earlier this week."

However, such a review may not yield further seizures as regulations currently dictate that airports must notify customs of all expected flights and "EU regulations allow for examination of internal EU flights only where there is reasonable suspicion", the Revenue spokesman told the Sunday Tribune.

It was a big week for drug busts in Ireland. Last Tuesday, it was reported that customs officials in Cork airport had discovered a kilo of cocaine, worth approximately 70,000, hidden in a woman's wig.

The 20-year-old American disembarked her flight from Amsterdam having travelled from Lagos, Nigeria. The cocaine was wrapped in black cotton packets and tied to her hair, over which a beehive hairpiece was placed.

HOW DRUGS GET SMUGGLED INTO IRELAND

>> In 2005, a male passenger was detected and found to be importing a quantity of cocaine concealed in Toblerone boxes.

>> In June 2006, approximately one kilo of cocaine was found concealed in buttons. Origin:

Argentina.

>> Again in June 2006, customs officers found one kilo of cocaine concealed in bars of soap. The soap was halved and the packages of cocaine hidden inside and placed in a vanity case. Origin: Sao Paulo, Brazil.

>> In July 2006, 53 videotapes were found to contain approximately 1kg of cocaine in total. Origin: Lagos, Nigeria >> In February 2005, a female passenger was discovered with around five kilos of cocaine concealed in bottles of make-up and cosmetics. Origin: Caracas, Venezuela.

>> In April 2006, a woman was found with three kilos of cocaine concealed in the lining of a laptop bag. Origin: Brussels, Belgium.

>> So far this year, five passengers have been found smuggling cocaine by ingesting pellets wrapped in condoms or plastic. Each drug mule concealed an average of one kilo.