THE Taoiseach has accused the IRA of damaging the State's efforts to combat illegal drugs by diverting Garda resources from pursuing drug dealers.
Speaking at an international crime conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr Bruton also said EU governments should try to find alternatives to prison - such as electronic tagging - to punish some types of offenders.
"We must look at electronic tagging and how it can be applied. We must look at confiscation of assets, we must look at restrictions of people's normal freedoms."
Electronic tagging allows offenders to live at home but requires them to wear a device which would alert the authorities to any movement outside a defined area.
In his address, the Taoiseach appealed to the IRA leadership to recognise the impact the organisation was having on the "socially important task of combating drug addiction and associated violence".
"Combating the drugs menace is a huge and extremely demanding task on its own without any other responsibilities being imposed upon our police force.
"It is terrible that the men and women of our police force who are working so bravely to combat the menace of drugs in our society - to combat it within the law - should find themselves distracted from that socially important task by the continued activities of an anti-Irish organisation such as the IRA.
"That they continue recklessly with their policy of intimidation through violence is appalling in itself, but it is doubly appalling when one bears in mind that having to deal with the IRA is distracting the police force in this jurisdiction, and the police force in the neighbouring jurisdiction from preventing drug trafficking."
Mr Bruton said criminals had become highly-sophisticated, particularly in modern communications "in their promotion of addiction".
"We have to be even more sophisticated in the measures that we deploy to combat crime."
Mr Bruton outlined the measures the Government plans to take during its EU presidency to improve international co-operation against drug traffickers. These included initiating co-operation between EU states' forensic science laboratories and agreements among the states on the manufacture and distribution of "precursors" - the chemical ingredients of modern synthetic drugs.
The Government would also be seeking agreement on greater sentences for drug trafficking and making them uniform throughout the EU. It would seek agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers "to ensure that we adopt a community action programme on the prevention of drug dependency running, up to the end of the century".
There would also be a conference to study the "international best practice" on the demand for drugs.
Mr Bruton told delegates one priority was the early ratification of the EU convention on Europol - the organisation based in The Hague through which national police forces and law enforcement agencies can share information.
Ratification of the convention would enable a computer system to be put in place at Europol so information could be transmitted "in real time" from one jurisdiction to another.
He believed the BSE crisis in Europe had delayed the ratification of the convention but he hoped the BSE problem would soon be resolved.
The conference, entitled "International Perspectives on Crime, Justice and Public Order", concludes today at Dublin Castle.