playing field needed to be restored. ComReg had much more funding, staff and resources than its predecessor – and these were put to use in May 2003, when a major crackdown on Dublin pirates saw virtually every station wiped off the band. This series of raids, which was conducted over two days and involved Garda Síochána officers and ESB staff, was referred to as "Black Tuesday" by the free radio community. Follow-up action in the years to come meant that any station that ventured on air usually didn't last that long – with the officials often tracking down and closing operators sometimes within five working days. The hardline stance has also been extended to other pirate heartlands such as Cork, Limerick and the border counties. For the first time, ComReg began to carry out raids at night and weekends – removing the only remaining "safe" time to broadcast without a licence. Today Ireland has few pirate stations. In Dublin a couple venture on air mainly at the weekends, using low power. Outside Dublin there are a few larger, full-time operators left, but they generally don't tend to last long. Stations which operate intermittently, or regularly change name and/or location tend to survive longer (many have never been raided) although obviously have more difficulty building up a substantial listenership and hence are perceived as being less of a threat to the licensed stations. ComReg's policy has come under criticism from many in the radio industry, who believe that the organisation should focus its resources on stations that cause interference, rather than simply carrying out blanket raids on all stations. These critics point out that while a mechanism has been put in place to remove pirates within a week, little has been done to free up the procedures for starting a licensed radio station. They call for a more tolerant attitude towards benevolent pirates, until a framework is introduced to allow niche stations to be set up and run at low cost with less strict regulation. Many of the remaining stations are so-called "Border Blasters", which operate from just inside the Republic of Ireland, in counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan and broadcasting with directional antennas into Northern Ireland. These stations had been generally more tolerated by Comreg/ODTR/DOC due to the broadcasts being aimed across the border, and not taking advertising or listenership to a significant degree from stations licensed by the BCI.