Minister of State at the Department of Justice Frank Fahey has pledged Fianna Fáil support for Tánaiste Michael McDowell's proposals to increase Garda powers to combat serious crime.
Speaking at at a meeting of the Joint Committee of Justice, Equality, Defence, and Women's Rights today, Mr Fahey said that it is "only right that the Government is taking a severe approach to tackling organised crime."
"As a junior Minister in the Tanaiste?s Department I would like to say that we in Fianna Fail are enthusiastically supportive of the Tanaiste's legislation."
"Draconian legislation is what is now required to tackle criminal gangs and organized crime in an organized way," he said.
Earlier, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell insisted he is not "rushing through" new legislation that will restrict certain individual rights in some criminal law investigations.
Defending proposals aimed at tackling gangland crime after they were criticised by a leading senior counsel today, Mr McDowell said it was "not right" to suggest he was "rushing something through" or that he had dreamt up the legislation "on the back of a beermat".
Michael McDowell
Michael O'Higgins SC said today he was "extremely sceptical" about the new measures, which will extend the maximum detention period for Garda questioning in some cases, as well as restricting the right to access to bail and allowing inferences to be drawn where a suspect exercises the right to silence.
Mr McDowell said the right-to-silence provisions were based on a report from the Balance in the Criminal Justice System group chaired by senior counsel Gerard Hogan, which he had established last November.
He believed that group "got the arguments right and came up with the right solutions".
"I personally believe that the public is sick and sorry of hearing defences of a situation in which somebody can, over a prolonged period of time, refuse to engage in any commentary on serious matters which are being put to him in the course of a criminal justice investigation into very serious offences and that no inference of any kind can be taken from their failure to mention things at that point, when they later produce a defence in a court trial," Mr McDowell said.
"I think that the suggestion that I'm rushing something through or the implication that I dreamt this up on the back of a beermat or just thought this up as a kind of on-the-spot spontaneous idea, that's not right."
On the question of bail, Mr McDowell emphasised that the judiciary is independent under the constitution.
He has on several occasions in the past been critical of the judiciary for granting bail in some serious criminal cases and for failing to impose mandatory sentences.
However, he said it was the "law of the land" that in exceptional and specific circumstances that the 10-year sentence cannot be applied.
"I believe that the law will be as clear as it possibly can be when this Bill is passed through the Dáil and I believe that the courts, as well as the Government and the gardaí all know that under the Constitution the criminal justice system is there to vindicate the rights of the people at large," he said.
"Just because there's a tight timeframe for getting it through doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It would be a nonsense for me to say that because there's an election coming up I'm giving up the day job and that I'm not producing legislation which is badly needed.
It would be a nonsense for the Oireachtas to give up on its function which is to legislate to counter the gang culture simply because everybody had their eye on an election."
Michael O'Higgins SC said he was "extremely sceptical" about the new measures.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio this morning Mr O'Higgins questioned if any of the changes to the criminal justcie system were warranted.
Michael O'Higgins SC
The changes planned include the extension of the detention period for people suspected of involvement in serious crime and the restriction of a suspect's right to silence. Bail and sentencing laws are also being targetted in the legislation.
The new restrictions are part of a Government measures designed to counter gangland activity.
However, Mr O'Higgins said the restrictions of a suspect's right to silence had "nothing to do with so-called gangland offences" and would apply to all arrestable offences.
"Indeed if you were suspected of stealing a bar of chocolate this change in the law will apply to any such person. It's nothing to do with gangland activity" he said.
Mr O'Higgins also said the new legislation should have been debated further.
"You don't go and change in my view the criminal justice system in this fundamental way without putting forward information, without debating it, and without doing it slowly, you don't tear up the entire criminal justice system three months before an election pass laws without any proper debate," he said.
The Green Party's spokesman on justice, Ciarán Cuffe, called the timing of the announcement "suspect in the extreme" and said it was another example of Mr McDowell "steam-rolling a complicated and controversial legislative package through the houses of the Oireachtas without allowing adequate time for debate".
"What we really need to tackle organised crime is good old fashioned policing. We need effective evidence-gathering and good relations between the Gardaí and the communities in which crime is rooted," Mr Cuffe added.