McDowell accuses rivals of U-turn on jail sentences

Fine Gael and Labour were today accused of performing a U-turn and scoring cheap political points on the issue of minimum prison terms for criminals.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell said TDs from both parties opposed mandatory 10-year sentences for drug dealers during Dáil debates on the 1999 Criminal Justice Act tabled by his predecessor John O’Donoghue.

The Progressive Democrats (PD) president today claimed Fine Gael TD Jim Higgins described the prison terms as unworkable and unconstitutional while then Democratic Left justice spokesperson and now Labour deputy leader Liz McManus warned they could overcrowd prisons.

Mr McDowell said: “The capacity for hypocrisy of Fine Gael and their partners in crime, the Labour Party, is once again glaringly obvious.

“Unsurprisingly, Fine Gael conjured up a further striking U-turn and discovered a new-found enthusiasm for mandatory sentences for gun crime.”

The minister told a PD event in Dublin today that Opposition leader Enda Kenny “had been at the angry pills again” when he called on the Government yesterday to rush through emergency legislation on gun crimes in the Dáil.

The House had been debating last weekend’s indiscriminate murder of mother-of-one Donna Cleary at a house party in Coolock, north Dublin.

Mr McDowell today said he had no difficulty in being politically accountable for the criminal justice system.

But he added: “I find hard to take a naked attempt by the leader of Fine Gael to grandstand and score cheap political points on this very serious issue, presiding as he does over a party which opposed the introduction of mandatory sentences for drug offences in the first instance.

“Deputy Kenny’s ham-fisted amateur theatrics don’t wash with me and I’m confident the Irish people aren’t taken in by them either.”

According to Mr McDowell, during debate on the 1999 Criminal Justice Act, Fine Gael proposed amendments to remove the 10-year mandatory sentence from the draft legislation.

He added: “I’ve come to expect no more from the members of the Labour Party who routinely oppose every law and order measure I introduce and I suppose I should at least welcome their consistency.

“Despite changing their brand name, their worn out rhetoric hasn’t changed one whit since 1998 when this measure was first debated in this House and opposed tooth and nail by Deputy McManus.”

Mr McDowell reiterated that he enacted 30 Bills since coming to office in 2002 and a further eight bills were currently on the Dáil and Seanad order papers.

He said he was on target to increase gardai by 2,000 to bring the strength of the force to 14,000 by the end of this year.

The Criminal Justice Bill contains a balanced package of measures designed to strengthen the criminal law in several key areas, he added.

“It is these measures, rather than Fine Gael theatrics and Labour Party bleating, which will strengthen the hand of An Garda Siochana in combating the scourge of gun crime and organised crime,” he concluded.