IRELAND

10 YEARS FOR IRISH DEALERS IN 'ZERO' PLAN

THE government's muchvaunted "zero tolerance" anticrime package will be
aired this week with the publication of the 1997 Criminal Justice Bill.

Mandatory sentences for drug dealers, more powers for judges and the
abolition of preliminary examinations of criminal trials are among its main
provisions, fulfilling some of the preelection promises of John
O'Donoghue, the justice minister.

The bill will propose that anyone caught with drugs worth more than £10,000
should serve a minimum 10year jail term.

Judges will be empowered to order an investigation into the assets of those
it convicts.

A preliminary inquiry will establish if the value of the assets warrants a
fullscale inquiry.

O'Donoghue is also proposing to abolish preliminary examination of criminal
trials. The system entitles defendants facing criminal charges to a
preliminary hearing in the district court to determine whether there is
sufficient evidence to refer the case to a higher court.

The measure will ease the log jam of cases in the district court, a
spokesman for the Department of Justice said. "More than 90% of cases that
go for preliminary examination end up in the higher courts anyway."

O'Donoghue is expected to publish the bill in the Dail around midweek. The
bill is understood to be a watereddown version of the anticrime measures
that O'Donoghue flagged during the general election campaign. Its
publication will follow much criticism from opposition parties of his "zero
tolerance" strategy. Roisin Shortall, the Labour party deputy, dismissed
zero tolerance as an election ploy.

Jim Higgins, the Fine Gael justice spokesman, accused O'Donoghue of doing a
Uturn on his crime policy. O'Donoghue admitted that gardai would be
denied their right to discretionary policing, a key contradiction of zero
tolerance, which is characterised by no crime being too small to prosecute.