Criminal suspects may be forced to provide saliva or mouth swabs to investigating gardai following the publication of draft new legislation today.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, published the Criminal Justice Bill 2004, which amends forensic evidence rules to allow the reclassification of such samples as "non-intimate" samples. The move has previously been criticised by civil rights bodies.
Mr McDowell said he was considering a number of further additions to the bill, but that rather than delay its publication, he would bring them forward as amendments at the Committee Stage.
Those measures would include a provision to deal with participation in "organised criminal gangs", provision to strengthen sentencing for drug trafficking and firearms offences and provisions to allow electronic tagging of offenders. Mr McDowell also reiterated his intention to draw up plans for a DNA databank, a measure that again is likely to prove controversial.
Other measures included in the new Bill include a statutory power to preserve a crime scene, a general power in relation to the issue of search warrants, an extension of the power of the prosecution to appeal in limited circumstances and provisions for fixed penalty fines for some of the less serious public order offences.
The latter amendment would, for example, allow gardai issue fines to people for offences such as public drunkenness without having to issue a summons and bring them before a court.
Mr McDowell he had paid particular attention to "getting the balance right" between maintaining the rights of the individual and at the same time ensuring "the optimum protection of society by ensuring adequate criminal law measures are available to deal with offenders".
"I believe the criminal law must be continually reviewed and, if necessary, updated to ensure that the criminal justice system fully meets the ever present challenge which criminality presents to society," Mr McDowell said. "The legislature must meet this challenge while at the same time safeguarding the rights of the individual. This Bill seeks to achieve that balance."
The Bill has its origins in the report of an expert group chaired by the late Mr Eamon Leahy SC, which was appointed to consider changes to the criminal law as recommended in the report of the steering group on the efficiency and effectiveness of the Garda.