The last year will be remembered as the one in which serious crime claimed a new victim every five minutes and there was an average of 300 serious crimes every day, according to the Fianna Fail spokesman on finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy. He criticised the Government for failing to introduce any new legislation to deal with crime so far this year and said the Government parties had voted against seven Bills introduced by his party.
While the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, had promised a referendum last March to allow the bail laws to be changed, there were still no plans to hold it, because of internal dissent. As a result of the Government's inactivity, he claimed, criminal procedures were not just outdated but were becoming increasingly ineffective.
Mr McCreevy was addressing a meeting of Cork Northwest Fianna Fail Cumann in Newmarket last night.