Gardaí will be given additional powers to tackle anti-social behaviour in legislation to be introduced within weeks, the Minister for Justice told the Dáil.

Mr O'Donoghue warned that the new measures would be tough, adding that some people might find them unpalatable, but he believed they were necessary and he hoped for Opposition support.

He said he had recently received Government approval for the drafting, on a priority basis, of a new Criminal Justice (Public Order Enforcement) Bill, which would provide gardaí with additional powers.

"It will target, in particular, drunk and unruly elements who congregate late at night outside or in the vicinity of licensed and other premises, such as fast food outlets, and who, by their aggressive and intimidating behaviour, threaten the peace and well-being of decent citizens and are a danger to others and to themselves." Expressing concern about the incidence of assault and general violence among young people, especially young men, he said it was a problem which was not capable of being addressed by law and order measures alone.

"It cannot be argued, either, that it is a problem which is associated with deprivation. The sad reality is that the young people becoming involved in this form of worrying anti-social behaviour come from all backgrounds and that many become involved simply because they have too much money at their disposal, rather than too little."

Mr O'Donoghue defended his record, as he came under sustained Opposition criticism because of serious crime levels.

Insisting that there had been a decline in serious crime, Mr O'Donoghue said it was important to understand that exact comparisons between the crime figures published in the annual report for 2000 and those of previous years were not possible.

He said that 73,276 headline offences were reported, or known to the Garda in 2000, compared with 81,274 indictable offences in 1999.

"On this basis, serious crime levels fell in 2000 by 9.8 per cent on the previous year and by 27.3 per cent since 1996."

The Minister was responding to an all-party motion, moved in private member's time, condemning the Government's record and adding that "many Irish people are living in fear of violent attack, borne out by the recently published Garda annual report."

The House will vote on the motion today.

The Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Alan Shatter, said there had been an unprecedented increase in street violence during the Government's term of office. "The vast majority of people living in this State no longer believe they are safe if they walk alone in their own neighbourhoods at night."

He said the report of the Garda Commissioner for 2000 recorded 10,933 incidents of assault, excluding sexual assaults, and acknowledged that there was a dramatic 133 per cent increase in assaults causing harm or serious injury.

In the same year, he added, gardaí recorded a 19 per cent increase in murders and manslaughters combined and the reporting to them of 549 sexual assaults, more than 10 every week.

"The mantra of zero tolerance used by the Minister for Justice as a clever soundbite during the 1997 election to attract support for the Fianna Fáil party has been totally exposed to be nothing more than self-serving, misleading and cynical election campaign rhetoric."

The Labour spokesman on justice, Mr Brendan Howlin, said that by the measure of the test he had set for himself in November 1997, Mr O'Donoghue had been a total and utter failure. "The sorry legacy of this Minister is that after his five years at the helm, most people feel less safe walking the streets and in their homes than they did when he came into office."

He said the failure of the Minister and the Garda authorities to alert the public to the fact that the figure for criminal damage offences had been transferred out of the category of serious offences "was at best an effort to withhold important information and at worst a deliberate attempt to mislead the public." Mr John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South East) said that Dubliners did not feel safe walking the streets.

"They actually feel safer walking the streets of New York."