Taoiseach Bertie Ahern ruled out the introduction of a fast-tracking system by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
"All we would do would be to lengthen what I understand to be an already quite lengthy case list in the Court of Criminal Appeal," he said. "It is constantly under pressure for good reasons because of the list.
"If there is an argument for doing something on some cases, just to create a longer list for everybody else, [ that] does not seem to be the solution."
He was replying to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who said such a move would be a necessary addition to the legislative portfolio to deal with issues of release on bail, given that the Taoiseach agreed with him there was concern that 11,000 serious crimes were committed in two years by persons released on bail.
"If this continues, almost 500,000 headline crimes will have been committed on the watch of the Minister for Justice [Michael McDowell]."
Earlier, Mr Kenny had said that over the past two years the 11,000 serious crimes that had been committed by people on bail had included 43 homicides, 500 assaults, 750 serious drug offences and thousands of thefts and burglaries.
"That amounts to more than 100 serious crimes a week committed by people who could and should be behind bars." He noted that his party had proposed that the courts should be authorised to tag electronically persons on bail so that their movements could be tracked on a full-time basis. "On Friday, the Minister for Justice stated that I had also referred to the electronic tagging of people as a condition of bail, something that, he contended, I well knew was already provided for in the Criminal Justice Bill now before the Dáil. The trouble is that it is not in the Bill before the Dáil. The Bill contains a provision to tag electronically people who have been convicted, which is what Deputy Jim O'Keeffe proposed last year."
Mr Ahern said that the legislative provisions for the granting of bail were very stringent.
"On the second question, subject to checking, Deputy Kenny is right. I believe that it is the way the Bill is worded, if I recall correctly. I believe the Deputy is correct on that. Whether the Minister brings forward an amendment at committee stage is a matter for him."
Mr Kenny said he wished to give the Taoiseach credit for clarifying what was correct.
"The Minister for Justice said that this provision was already contained in the Bill. I am glad the Taoiseach has asserted his authority in having the Bill passed at the Cabinet table and is now confirming that it is not in the legislation. He who knows everything about these matters would be well advised to take note of the Taoiseach's confirmation."
Mr Kenny said that while the referendum tightened the bail conditions in some respects, judges must still draw on a mixture of legislation and precedent when granting it. It would be appropriate, he added, that a new Bill setting out all those conditions comprehensively should be introduced by the House.
Mr Ahern said that before the law was changed, the courts had no power to keep somebody in prison pending a trial. "Regardless of how likely they were to re-offend, and even if they were certain to re-offend, the courts could not do that."
