ON Thursday TDs return to the Dail to consider a plethora of proposals aimed at tackling the State's growing crime problem.

Most of them were rushed out by the Government in the days following the murder of Veronica Guerin on June 26th. Some of the proposed reforms had been discussed for years, but a number were quite new. The intervening diversion of public and political attention towards Northern Ireland means that next week will be the first opportunity for them to receive serious scrutiny.

Announcing the proposals in instalments during the week following the murder of Ms Guerin, Ministers and the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said they were a response to her death and the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare.

But, in fact, the announcement of the measures had very little to do with the murder of the garda or a fear of subversives (the Government's first instinct after Adare was to try to persuade the public that members of the IRA might not have been involved). The measures which will be discussed on Thursday are about organised crime curbing the activities of the major criminals and drug traffickers one or more of whom gave the word for Ms Guerin to be killed.

There are four main pieces of legislation to be processed on Thursday. The one expected to pass quickly into law is a Fianna Fail Bill, revised by the Government, dealing with seizure of criminals' assets.

In addition, there will be a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill from the Government, dealing with a collection of lesser items such as ways to reduce the amount of time gardai spend on court duty, and there will be a Courts Bill and a Department of Finance Bill on taxing criminals wealth.

The asset seizure Bill from Fianna Fail has been extensively rewritten, and details of the Government's changes in it will only become known on Tuesday, when the Bill reaches its committee stage in the Dail. The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, has said, however, that despite the need for changes she has accepted the principles of the Fianna Fail Bill.

If it passes into law on Thursday, as expected, it should prove to be one of the most radical anti crime measures ever passed by the Dail. The essence of the Bill is that where the authorities come across assets which they believe to have been illegally acquired, the burden of proof is on the owner of the assets to show that they are not ill gotten gains.

A Revenue Commissioner or senior garda must be able to show a court that there are reasonable grounds for believing the assets were acquired by illegal activity but once that is done the assets could be "frozen" for a number of years. Previously, the burden of proof was on prosecutors to show that the assets resulted from criminal activity.

The Bill only calls for the assets to be "frozen". They cannot ultimately be seized unless a criminal conviction follows.

It has been pointed out that "freezing" of assets might prove less severe than it sounds a criminal might still enjoy the use of his large house, cars, boats and so on, provided he did not dispose of them.

There is no doubt, however, that "freezing" cash in bank accounts would be a hindrance to any criminal. Whether the existence of such a law would also frighten legitimate overseas investors away from the State, as has been suggested in financial circles, remains to be seen.

OTHER measures to be discussed include the long awaited referendum to reform the bail laws, plans for 400 extra gardai to be recruited over the next 18 months (in addition to the 700 already scheduled for recruitment), new prison spaces and the establishment of a Garda led team made up of gardai, Revenue and Social Welfare officials aimed at targeting the drug barons' money.

While all these measures are a response to the killing of Ms Guerin, it is fair to say that none of them promises to catch her killers. The most that the promoters of these and allied reforms can hope to do is make criminal life more difficult in the future.

A more telling move, however, may be the planned review of the operations of the Garda, a timely initiative given the opportunity presented by the appointment of a new Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne who takes office this weekend.

The general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, Mr George Maybury, says he welcomes many of the Government's initiatives but is incensed that the Government has chosen to isolate An Garda Siochana for a review of efficiency and cost effectiveness.

He argues that a much broader review of the criminal justice system is needed and cites the example of Tony Felloni, the Dublin drug dealer who recently received a 20 year sentence.

"The gardai were extremely efficient in detecting crimes committed by Tony Felloni", he says. "They brought him to court, the courts released him on bail, the gardai caught him again, the courts released him on bail, the gardai caught him again, the courts released him on bail.

"It is manifestly obvious that the gardai were efficient and cost effective. The failure was completely in other areas of the criminal justice system."

That may be true, but it does not mean that the Garda could not be organised in a different way. Successive Ministers for Justice have said dealing with drugs is their "top priority". But, as a recent Labour Party document on the drugs crisis pointed out, only about 1.5 per cent of Garda personnel are employed in drug units.

All gardai deal with drug crime as part of their normal duties, but of fewer than 200 members of the 10,709 strong force are actively pursuing drug criminals it can be argued that the Ministers' anti drug priority is not reflected in the way priorities are decided "on the ground".

The review body which will examine the way the Garda operates includes Mr Byrne and the former second in command at the New York Police Department, Mr John Timoney, who has been credited with restructuring the New York police in a way which brought dramatic reductions in the city's crime rate.

Under the terms of his appointment, Mr Byrne is obliged to implement the proposals of the review group when its work is completed. It may be that he and Mr Timoney can steer the group towards a way of bridging any gap between the politicians' anti drug "priority" and the priorities indicated by the way gardai are deployed.

Other ideas which have been floated include giving gardai more money to pay informants (they can already make use of a fund of about £500,000 a year) and establishing a US style witness protection programme, which would involve criminals who give evidence against their associates being set up with new identities and livelihoods overseas.

Senior gardai who have been investigating some of the "contract killings" of recent months are "willing to try anything", but suspect such a scheme would not yield the expected results. They already have money for payments to informants and are used to protecting vital witnesses without such an elaborate programme.

The detectives feel that few of the hardened Dublin criminals ate the care of the State's organised crime problem would be attracted by such a scheme, given that most of them want their lives to continue to revolve around their families, friends and favourite inner city pubs in Dublin.

In any event, such a programme only succeeds in "turning" a criminal against his gang when there is so much evidence against him that he considers he has no other option. In the investigations into unsolved "contract killings" in Dublin it has proved remarkably difficult to gather evidence of such a compelling nature.

MANY gardai would like to be able to detain suspects for a wide range of crimes for up to 48 hours, with a further 12 or possibly 24 hours on a judge's permission.

The seven day detention provided for by recent drug trafficking legislation is considered a measure which will only be rarely used, and the value of any statements given after seven days in custody has yet to be tested in the courts.

Gardai would also welcome more limits on the right to silence. The right is now being restricted in drugs cases, but members of the force would like the same limits to apply to other crimes.

The only change sought is one which would allow judges and juries to make an inference from the fact that when questioned by gardai an accused person made no reference to something later relied on in his defence.

This follows years of frustration for gardai, who have become accustomed to dealing with criminals who wait to learn the focus of Garda investigations through questioning, say nothing in response and arrange their alibis later. It would be unreasonable and probably impossible to draft a law obliging the suspect to say something, but a reasonable counter to his silence is the fact of it being made known in court.

In times of crisis such as the Government experienced with the killing of Veronica Guerin it may not be surprising that law enforcement measures are the focus of politicians' attention.

But on Thursday a group from the Dublin Citywide Campaign Against Drugs will gather at the gates of Leinster House to remind TDs that such measures offer only part of the answer.

According to the group, the same amount needs to be spent on treatment of drug addicts and a co-ordinated education programme to reduce demand for drugs. Only this "demand reduction" route, the group says, offers real hope of containing the State's drug problem and reducing drug crime.