The Oireachtas Committee on Justice is to ask the acting Garda Commissioner, Noirín O’Sullivan, if there is a need to set up a dedicated garda unit to patrol the country’s trains.

Serious assaults, public order offences and drunkenness are down significantly in Cork City and county. And senior gardaí believe it’s due to more officers on the streets at peak times.

The report of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice calling for the criminalisation of payments for sex through prostitution is warmly welcomed.

Cash for gold shops could be forced to keep records on the identity of people who sell to them and the source of jewellery traded under controls being considered for the industry.

Plans to reduce the terms of bankruptcy for struggling borrowers will leave them facing eight years of insolvency terms instead of the proposed three.

Operation Free-Flow could be axed because of a lack of funding, according to a Fianna Fáil Senator.

GREATER human rights protections are needed in the Government’s legislation to establish a DNA database for use by gardaí, an Oireachtas Committee has heard.

JUSTICE Minister Dermot Ahern has said he is not trying to create a new law to criminalise blasphemy in new proposals he believes will clear up rules already on the books.

THE Garda Commissioner has warned that the battle against gangland crime cannot be underestimated.

CIVIL rights campaigners have warned that Government plans for an initiative to help victims of crime may not, in fact, further their rights, but might instead prejudice those of suspects and possibly even collapse investigations.

Relatives of those killed in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings today called on the British government to investigate claims of state collusion in the 1974 attacks.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was today urged to agree to an all-party Dáil motion endorsing the various reports which probed violent atrocities in the North.

Canadian Mounted Police and officers from the UK’s Norfolk Constabulary will back Michael McDowell’s plans for a garda reserve force later today.

The recruitment drive for the new Garda reserve force, which was due to begin at the end of May, is suffering setbacks.

THE two garda associations engaged in a bitter row over the garda reserve are to hold meetings with Justice Minister Michael McDowell over the coming days.

Gardaí may have covered-up the murder of a Dundalk forestry worker 30 years ago because of his killers’ links with British military intelligence, an Oireachtas committee heard today.

If al-Qaida sympathisers living in this country pose a threat, they will be deported, Defence Minister Willie O’Dea stated yesterday.

GOVERNMENT plans to reform the country's criminal justice system are weak, the former head of the Criminal Assets Bureau yesterday said.

ORGANISED crime gangs in Dublin, Limerick and Cork will be the first targets of wide-ranging legislation planned by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.