Fianna Fáil and Labour have both put the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) at the centre of their proposals to tackle serious crime, write Conor Lally, Crime Correspondent and Kathryn Hayes
The parties unveiled their plans at separate pre-election crime policy launches in Dublin yesterday.
While both see Cab playing a central role in fighting organised crime, Labour believes a reorganisation and expansion of the witness protection programme could prove just as effective.
Launching the Fianna Fáil crime manifesto, Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea said his party believed its "hard-hitting" legislative proposals would damage leading criminals.
Fianna Fáil has proposed the introduction of "divestiture" orders which would force criminals to sell their stakes in "tainted enterprises".
The party has also proposed a system of "trusteeships" which would allow the courts empower trustees to run organisations infiltrated or controlled by criminals.
Fianna Fáil also wants to see the introduction of Cab liaison officers in each Garda division. Mr O'Dea added that while it was unacceptable that 27 people were killed in gun attacks last year he was proud of his party's record in reducing overall crime rates.
Serious crimes had fallen from 29 incidents per 1,000 population in 1995 to 24.6 crimes in 2005.
Crime rates had "not fallen by accident" but had been reduced because of the Government's investment in prevention, the Garda, more prison spaces and "tougher laws".
At Labour's launch, the party's justice spokesman, Brendan Howlin, said the deaths of 27 people in gun attacks last year proved organised crime gangs were "wreaking havoc".
Mr Howlin said there were gangs who "regard life as meaningless and would cut your throat from ear to ear at the drop of a hat".
The witness protection programme was currently operating on an "ad hoc" basis. It should be put on a statutory footing and allocated unlimited funding.
Former accomplices "often make the best witnesses" and everything must be done to secure their testimony.
His party was also proposing to reinvigorate Cab by giving it more resources, enabling it pursue minor figures as vehemently as gang leaders.
Labour has also mooted introducing a new offence of membership of an organised crime gang.
Mr Howlin said a new focus on tackling white-collar crime was needed. Those in the legal and financial professions who collaborated with criminals "need to understand there will be consequences".
Meanwhile in Limerick, the Minister for Justice, Progressive Democrats leader Michael McDowell, vowed to tackle antisocial behaviour. He said background checks should be carried out on anyone involved in such crimes before rent subsidies were awarded.
Unveiling his party's plan for combating crime, the Tánaiste said he intended talking to the Minister for Social Affairs, Séamus Brennan, about State subsidies being handed out to people who are already causing problems for their neighbours.
"The present situation would appear to be that community welfare officers don't do checks into the backgrounds of the people they are dealing with, but deal with their situation purely on the basis of objective need for housing.
"It is my view that there is a very clear capacity for community welfare officers and the Department of Social and Family Affairs to insist that in giving rent subsidies to people who have already established a pattern of antisocial behaviour that checks are done, and that people are not offered accommodation in places where they are likely to replicate a problem."