ASPECTS of Ms Owen's anti crime package have received Opposition commendation but there has also been criticism of the lack of changes in bail laws.
Shortly after the proposals were launched by the Minister yesterday, Opposition politicians united in describing the crime situation as critical.
Fianna Fail's spokesman on justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, said crime, on a scale that was once unthinkable, had now become a grim and frequent reality. Cruelty and depravity had become commonplace.
The Minister and her Cabinet colleagues were doing "very little, very late" and people were abandoned by a Government which offered no protection, Mr O'Donoghue said.
Ms Owen should abolish the present system of preliminary examination in the district court hold a referendum on the right to bail provide enough courts and judges to eliminate the backlog in the Central Criminal Court end the present system of random and temporary release reactivate the murder squad and publish a White Paper to generate informed public debate on the criminal justice policy of the Government.
"The Government has failed to lead in the fight against crime. It has made promise after promise but has failed to deliver any policy," he said.
Meanwhile, Ms Liz O'Donnell of the Progressive Democrats, welcomed the crime package, describing it as the end of the Government's "paralysis in the face of the fight against escalating crime".
However, she urged an end to the "unregulated system of temporary release" and also accused the Minister of being "curiously silent" on the Government's commitment to a constitutional amendment to deal with changes in the bail laws.