THE law and order measures outlined by the Government this week were dismissed by gardai tackling serious crime and terrorist threats as an "election package" a euphemism for worthless promises.

Their view was reinforced by revelations in the aftermath of the Government announcement, a response to the murders of crime reporter Veronica Guerin and Det Garda Jerry McCabe, when it emerged that funding was not available for any immediate action.

The "£54 million" package was actually a projected figure for spending over five years. The Department of Finance confirmed that only £1 million of additional funding was being made available this year.

Internationally acknowledged methods of tackling organised crime were not addressed in the package, and there is no indication funding is being made available for the type of measures required to deal with the people who ordered Ms Guerin's murder.

The critical response by the Garda Commissioner contained a hint of the Government's failure to address his advice on responding to the threat of organised crime.

Organised crime requires expensive, special operations with tightly controlled funding and management. For example, the single most successful policing method when targeting organised criminals or any terrorist or subversive group is known as "boxing".

"Boxing" requires the total commitment of a unit of up to a dozen officers to a single target for secret, round the clock surveillance. The target is under surveillance for up to six months before the exercise matures with prosecutions and seizures of assets and drugs.

During the operation, the officers need at least four unmarked vehicles at their disposal, which can be changed within 24 hours. They have encrypted radio communications and advanced audio and video surveillance equipment.

The British security services used this system with great success to uncover Soviet KGB spies in the 1970s and against the IRA in the early 1990s and it has been used with great success by racketeering units in the US and some European countries. It has never been used in this State.

Such a "boxing" operation on Dublin's organised criminals could conceivably have yielded film or bugged conversations of gangsters hiring assassins to kill Ms Guerin and may have saved her life.

As it was, gardai had no advance knowledge that Dublin's professional criminals were planning the murder.

To mount a "boxing" operation in this State would require Government permission, which would mean details of the operation becoming known to people outside the Garda. Widening the circle of people who know about such an operation increases the danger of exposure and the threat to the officers involved.

In his critical statement on the Government's response to the Guerin murder. Commissioner Culligan pointed out that, in the Programme for Government, the Coalition partners promised to make the Garda Commissioner the accounting officer for the force. This had not happened.

As accounting officer, the Commissioner would be able to instruct gardai to carry out a "boxing" operation and be confident that the details of their work would not have to go any further. His obligation to the lives of his officers would not be diluted by having to account to people outside the Garda.

While the Garda has the resources and willingness to carry out "boxing" operations it does not, apparently, have the support or trust of the Government to spend its money as it sees fit.

Gardai have praised the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, for her sympathetic support for their case but believe she has been undermined within the Coalition Government.

There is a strong feeling among senior gardai that the Governmental control of the Garda Siochana will continue to dictate that resources will be deployed for reasons of political expediency rather than operational effectiveness.

Gardai are keenly aware of the impact organised crime is having on the State but are unable to redirect resources because the Government retains control of expenditure.

ANOTHER factor has been the underresourcing of policing. Only eight officers from the National Surveillance Unit, at Garda Headquarters, are available for photographic surveillance on serious criminals.

These officers work a shift rota system this means that only two surveillance experts, out of a force of 12,000, are likely to be on duty at any given time for this kind of operation. The State has dozens of major criminal gangs and hundreds of major drug dealers.

An illustration of the underresourcing of the force was apparent in the immediate aftermath of the Veronica Guerin murder.

The nearest station to the murder scene, and the station from which the investigation should have been carried out, is Clondalkin. But Clondalkin station does not have room to accommodate the number of officers needed for a large investigation.

In fact, earlier this year the gardai at Clondalkin threatened to refuse to "parade", or turn out, for duty at the station because of the cramped and dilapidated conditions.

The station was built in the 1960s, before the population explosion in west Dublin, to accommodate about 12 officers. It now houses more than 50.

The Guerin investigation was set up instead in the roomy old Garda station at Lucan.

While the Garda has access to some of the best crime detection equipment, human resources are badly stretched.

Dedicating some 30 full time detectives to the Guerin investigation has meant other investigations have been left in abeyance. One officer said the investigations of the 12 previous gangland killings in Dublin were now virtually "paper" investigations, and the files were largely dormant unless an officer should happen upon a significant piece of evidence which might reactivate a case.

The extent of the resources available to organised crime were put into perspective last year in an address to a conference on the drugs problem by the Garda Drugs Administration Officer, Chief Supt John McGroarty.

He referred to an assessment by Interpol that the international drugs economy was probably worth $400 billion and was affecting world banking systems.

With the removal of internal borders in Europe, drug cartels were increasingly targeting the markets of the western European countries as their next biggest market after the United States. The drug suppliers were aware that while Europe had only seven 7 per cent of the world's population, it had 30 per cent of the world's wealth.

Irish traffickers are known to have established links with major drug suppliers in Europe and beyond.

The scepticism among gardai about the latest Government promises on law and order improvements is based in their knowledge of how drug abuse in Dublin and other population centres is worsening.

Officers in one central Dublin district pointed out that heroin in their area had fallen in price to £7 or £8 for a quarter gram package which could have cost £50 a few years ago.

Addicts are gathering in derelict sites and flats and smoking and injecting in front of their own young children.

The officers believe the suppliers are making little or no profit and are selling the heroin at these low prices to increase the number of users, the same way as super markets use "loss leader" products to increase their share of the retail market.

ONCE the traffickers have hooked a sufficient number of new addicts, the price will increase again and the addicts will have to turn to more serious crime to feed their habit.

Some senior officers are resigned, to the fact that organised crime will develop here no matter what the State's response is.

The major criminals in Dublin intelligence systems. They are known to gather at foreign holiday resorts and at the locations of international soccer or major boxing events to hold conferences about strategy and the division of spoils and territory.

Moves towards a European policing force along the lines of the FBI in the US also show little sign of progress. EU officials have been discussing "Europol" for years but the idea shows little sign of ever becoming a reality.

After years of discussion, a small Europol Drugs Unit (EDU) office was set up in The Hague: this recently produced a small booklet for distribution to EU police forces showing different types of the drug ecstasy. The booklet was probably out of date by the time it was printed, as tablets change shape and design almost monthly.