Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is to seek Government approval this week for the employment of more civilian staff to the Garda Síochána to free up officers from administrative duties to fight crime.
Mr McDowell will also propose at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow more staff for the Courts Service and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to allow cases to come to trial more quickly, thereby reducing or in some cases eliminating the need for bail.
The new chief inspector of the Garda Inspectorate, Kathleen O'Toole, recently recommended the appointment of more civilians to the Garda Síochána and it is understood Mr McDowell wants to fast-track those recommendations. He also wants more support staff in the Courts Service to complement the appointment of nine new judges announced by the Government last week.
Mr McDowell met Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and Deputy Commissioner and head of operations Fachtna Murphy over the weekend and was briefed on the crime situation. They will meet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today to discuss how the system can be improved and in particular how bail procedures can be tightened.
This follows the violent deaths of five people last week, including apprentice plumber Anthony Campbell, shot dead in Finglas before gunmen killed their intended target, drug dealer Martin Hyland. Mr McDowell and Mr Conroy launched attacks on the judiciary following the killings, accusing some judges of being "soft" on criminals in relation to bail applications.
Mr McDowell said yesterday that it was the Garda Síochána that raised with him last week the matter of judges giving bail despite their objections. He was responding to a Sunday Times report that gardaí agreed to bail for at least two members of Martin Hyland's gang and that judges were not to blame for granting bail to 23 out of 24 significant players in Hyland's crime operation.
A source said last night that funding more staff would not be an issue as Mr Ahern has said repeatedly that he was willing to allocate necessary resources.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte last night accused Mr McDowell of embarking on a "near-constitutional crisis" by attacking the judges and accusing them of reneging on their duty to apply the Constitution and the law. He called on Mr Ahern to ask Mr McDowell to explain how his repeated claims about the judiciary, bail and mandatory sentencing can be reconciled with the emerging facts.
Mr Rabbitte said Mr McDowell had attacked the judges for using the discretion they are entitled to under the law and for failing to impose mandatory sentences for certain serious offences.
"Again Mr McDowell is trying to divert attention away from the real issue - the poor detection rate for serious crime. For instance, the courts are obliged to impose a penalty of life imprisonment for murder, but this is of little value when we know from figures supplied by the Minister himself that the conviction rate for gun murder is less than 16 per cent," he said. Mr Rabbitte added that the level of criticism that Mr McDowell directed at the judiciary was unprecedented.