The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has published legislation which will enable the courts to accept as evidence witness statements to the Garda that are recanted in the courts.
Draft legislation published yesterday also includes provision for gardaí to impose fixed fines - expected to be between €200 and €300 - for public disorder and intoxication offences.
There is provision for the taking of mouth swabs of saliva for DNA texts, with or without the consent of a suspect.
The measures are contained in the Criminal Justice Bill 2004, which will extend the powers of the Garda and empower the prosecution in criminal cases to appeal a judge-directed acquittal on a a point of law.
While the Bill is expected to be enacted before Christmas, the Labour Party said the additional powers proposed were sweeping and would require detailed examination by the Dáil.
The Labour Party justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello, said the powers should not come into operation until the office of the Garda Ombudsman was fully operational.
Contrary to expectation, the Bill did not contain provisions to criminalise membership of an organised gang.
The Department of Justice and Law Reform said Mr McDowell will introduce measures to criminalise gang membership during the committee-stage debate on the Bill.
But he will not publish the details until the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice completes a separate review of the criminal justice system.
The committee's review of the criminal justice system followed the collapse last year of the murder trial of a Limerick teenager, Mr Liam Keane, after witness statements central to the case were withdrawn.
The measure in the the Bill to allow the admissibility of witness statements that are retracted, which is a direct response to that case, is based on principles outlined by the Canadian courts.
This measure will also cover cases in which witnesses who previously made a statement refuse to testify in court.
The Department of Justice and Law Reform said yesterday the provision would apply where a witness refuses to give evidence in court or gives evidence which is inconsistent with an earlier statement.
"Factors necessary for the admission in evidence of the previous statements include that the statement is reliable, voluntary and made by a witness in circumstances where he or she has understood the need to tell the truth," it said.
The Department said Mr McDowell considered it "only right" that limited right to prosecution appeals be extended so that rulings on point of law unfavourable to the prosecution can be appealed.
The Bill said the new right to prosecution appeals cannot interfere with the decision to acquit the accused.
It went on to say that the consequences of the appeal were strictly limited to the point of law at issue in the direction.
On the powers of the Garda, the Bill will empower a superintendent to issue an emergency 24-hour search warrant where it is not practical to get a court warrant.
While extending the statutory power of the Garda to preserve a crime scene, the Bill will also amend Section 4 of the 1984 Criminal Justice Act to provide for the possibility of a second 12-hour period of detention after an initial 12 hours.
The Bill also contains an amendment to the Firearms Acts, which will require applicants for firearms certificates to satisfy a garda superintendent that they have provided secure accommodation for the firearm.
In addition, the Bill extends the power of the Garda to take DNA samples by reclassifying saliva and mouth swabs as non-intimate samples as opposed to intimate samples.
This reclassification means gardaí will be able to take such samples, a source of DNA, without the consent of witnesses.
While additional provisions to allow for the electronic tagging of those convicted in the courts are being prepared, they were not published yesterday.
Mr McDowell is also examining proposals by the Law Reform Commission for the creation of national DNA database.
Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, claimed the Minister had allowed an opportunity to slip through his fingers in the Bill.
"Despite Minister McDowell's assertion that he was going to tackle criminal gang membership, he has completely failed to address this in the Bill.
"Nor does it put the witness protection programme on a statutory footing.
"This failure has already been criticised by the courts," Mr O'Keeffe said.
