The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has denied that he is to blame for the release of five suspected drug-traffickers arrested by gardai.
During acrimonious exchanges in the Dail yesterday on the administrative confusion which led to the release of the men the Minister sought to shift the focus of the debate away from his office and on to the administration of the courts.
Amid uproar from the opposition benches Mr O'Donoghue said: "If there was bungling, and if there was ignorance, and if there was any kind of negligence . . . it clearly did not emanate from me."
The Minister said that he would have discussions with the President of the District Court, Judge Peter Smithwick, to see what procedures could be put in place to ensure that the circumstances which led to the releases were not repeated.
The High Court is to hear an application tomorrow by the DPP to overturn the decision of the Dublin District Court to release the men, whom gardai had sought to detain under the 1996 Drug Trafficking Act in connection with a £3 million cannabis haul.
The suspects were set free last week when it emerged that Judge Desmond Windle was not among the limited number of judges nominated by the President of the District Court to grant Garda requests to extend a detention period under the Act.
In the Dail yesterday the Fine Gael justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, said that the Minister was effectively blaming Judge Windle for what had occurred.
Mr O'Donoghue replied that he took exception to the charge that he had "shelved" the blame on to the judge. "I have taken great pains to explain the distinction between the roles of various judges in this matter", he said. "I have taken great pains as well to explain that it is not for me to apportion blame."
The Minister said he understood the President of the District Court had told the judges involved of their "nominations", but he had not written to anybody else about the matter.
It is now expected that additional judges will be nominated to sign detention warrants under the Act. At present only two of the 13 District Court judges in Dublin are empowered to grant applications under the Act. All 23 provincial judges have been nominated to do so, but none of the 11 moveable judges has.
The Minister said that it was a cause of the "deepest concern" that the gardai and Judge Windle did not know, at the time of the original application, that the judge was not nominated by the President of the District Court.
More than 250 people have been served with seven-day detention orders since the Act came into force in September last year.