Dissident republicans are heavily involved in a "disturbing" level of criminal activity in three cities and the Border area, the Garda Commissioner said yesterday.
Mr Noel Conroy told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice that the groups had a heavy involvement in smuggling, the provision of arms to criminals and the extortion of drug-dealers and drug-traffickers.
He said there was no doubt that the dissident groups had brought a new involvement to bear on the crime scene. "The other groups are not to my knowledge involved in criminality," he said. He did not name the three cities to which he was referring.
Mr Conroy said that the Garda had a good record in the detection of serious crime, such as murder.
Stating that jury intimidation was not widespread, he said there was a problem, but it was not as bad as had been alleged.
Ireland was in the second division when the level of organised crime here was compared with worldwide figures, he said.
Mr Conroy told the committee that he supported the video-taping of all interviews with suspects.
He believed it should be possible for defence and prosecution counsel to agree on the contents of such evidence in the pre-trial phase of a hearing.
If agreement was not possible, a "judicial figure" should adjudicate.
On resources, Mr Conroy said he would like to have more gardaí, but did not comment directly on the Government commitment to increase the strength of the force by 2,000.
He said he met the Garda management team regularly to decide on deployment.
While weightings were applied to needs in different areas, gardaí were deployed over and above that system in cases of special needs.
The committee meeting yesterday morning was the last of six two-hour sessions in which the committee reviewed the legal measures to prevent witness intimidation.
The review was initiated after the collapse during the autumn of the Central Criminal Court trial of Mr Liam Keane for the murder of a Limerick man, Mr Eric Leamy.
The committee plans to make a report to the Government with recommendations.
