IT was towards the latter half of the 1990s and drug dealers in Dublin were beginning to look for new markets outside the capital.

Drug trafficking meant big business and a relatively easy way of turning a nice profit, compared to armed robberies or other crimes where the risk of being caught was greater.

But then came the garda crackdown that followed the murder of investigative journalist Veronica Guerin by one of the country's biggest drugs gangs.

The Government's introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act and the setting up of the Criminal Assets Bureau posed new threats to the major dealers and many fled the country to set up new bases in Spain, the Netherlands or in Britain.

Smaller dealers sought to make new connections down the country where the market for drugs was expanding and new opportunities were being created.

Provincial drug gangs were already flourishing in Cork and Limerick but there were other cities and large urban centres such as Galway where there were gaps in the trade and competition not as cut-throat.

Dubliner Paddy McCormack had already moved into the drugs business and was well known to members of garda units operating on the northside of Dublin and in the north inner city.

He featured less prominently on the target list of the Garda national drugs unit although he had been arrested for questioning by some of its detectives.

McCormack was not in the big league but he was regarded as a fairly significant drugs player on his own northside turf.

Like many other criminals he had graduated into trafficking in cannabis, and sometimes cocaine, from an earlier career in robbery.

Born in 1955, he was known in his early years as Paddy Wynne, taking his father's name. But he then adopted his mother's maiden name.

His connections with Foley Street in the inner city and his home at Artane Cottages on the Malahide Road meant he had the geographical opportunities to build up a wide circle of associates and he had come to the attention of the gardai in several districts, as a result.

McCormack's passion for motorcycles was recorded on garda files and if a bike was used as the getaway after a robbery on the northside in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his name was usually one of the first to come to the minds of experienced crime fighters.

At one stage in the 1980s he moved into rented accommodation with a well known associate at Briarfield Road in Kilbarrack and it was rumoured that he kept a sawn-off shotgun stashed nearby.

Not too many criminals had instant access to sawn-off shotguns in those days and several searches were carried out by the gardai to locate the weapon but it was never found.

However, gardai did achieve other successes against McCormack and in 1987 he received a four year jail sentence when he was convicted of robbery and possession of a firearm, while in 1991 he was handed a 16-month prison term for larceny and trespassing.