THE Government has moved to counter what is seen as Fianna Fail's advantage in the dispute over "zero tolerance" of crime by offering reassurances that the Coalition does not accept law breaking at any level.
Following comments yesterday by the Fine Gael TD, Mr Charlie Flanagan, that the "zero tolerance" concept of policing was a Victorian idea, a Government spokesman last night insisted the Coalition would not accept crime in any form.
The objective of the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice is to achieve a situation where the Gardai are an efficient, effective and targeted force in beating crime," the spokesman added.
Mr John Timoney, the former New York deputy police chief, who was responsible for the idea of "zero tolerance", sits on the expert group on policing which advises the Government, the spokesman said.
As Government and opposition politicians continued to exchange fire in the crime debate, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said his party would have no problem working with the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, in spite of their difference in approach to the idea of "zero tolerance".
Speaking at a press conference in Dublin, Mr Ahern said he was sure Mr Byrne, "as a dutiful Commissioner of the Garda" probably said "what the Minister for Justice tells him to say".
The Fianna Fail front bench spokesman on justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, whose comments on "zero tolerance" gave rise to the controversy involving the Commissioner, challenged the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, to spell out the level and category of crime that Fine Gael accepted.
Fianna Fail had long suspected that Fine Gael and the Government "have been pulling their punches when it came to the crime issue". If it was a question of lack of resources, the Government should respond and "if it is a management attitude that's the problem", it should be debated and, hopefully, cleared up.
The Minister for Social Welfare Mr De Rossa, added his voice to criticism of the opposition, saying that the Progressive Democrats had "tried to mug Fianna Fail for custody of the crime issue".
"Political life always has its share of its prophets of doom and hang em and flog em' advocates, but a few hard questions need to be asked on foot of Fianna Fail's - uncosted - zero tolerance document on crime and the PDs' desperate attempt to hijack it," he said.
He asked if Fianna Fail was seriously suggesting a major diversion of Garda resources from prosecution of serious crime into cleansing the streets of buskers and jaywalkers.
The leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Mary Harney, yesterday indicated support for the Fianna Fail proposal of a "zero tolerance" treatment of crime when she said that it had proved to be successful in other countries.
It reflected an attitude of mind, an attitude which said that if there were laws, then they should be implemented. She was not talking of jailing people all over the place, but there was clear evidence to show that such a policy appeared to pay dividends in other jurisdictions.
Speaking in Galway, she said that 50 people were being set free every day in Ireland because of the lack of space in the prison system, and there was need for a radical re think in the area of penalties imposed for crime. The concept of "a fine or prison" did not work in circumstances where people simply refused to pay the fines and knew that there was no space in the prison system for them.
Such a penalty was inappropriate in cases where people had been involved in crime for the money. For instance, one person involved in white collar crime" and sentenced to three years recently had been released in a matter of weeks. She asked what this said, about the system to other criminals.
Ms Harney said the justice system should be looking at methods such as the seizure of assets or goods of people involved in crime.
Expressing surprise at the response of the Garda Commissioner and the Government to the zero tolerance style of policing, the PD justice spokeswoman, Ms Liz O'Donnell, pointed to the success of Operation Freeflow and Operation Dochas.
Operation Freeflow involved the strict enforcement in Dublin of existing road traffic laws over Christmas, while Operation D6chas was introduced to counter open drug peddling on the streets. Both operations, Ms O'Donnell said, amounted to zero tolerance policing.
The quality of life for everyone in Ireland would be substantially improved if the same level of enforcement was applied to a whole range of so called petty and minor law breaking.