Bill outlines new crimes and limits right to silence

Curtailment of the right to silence, increases in maximum detention periods and five new offences including direction of terrorism are the main features of the new Offences Against the State (Amendment) Bill.

As drafted, the Bill provides that courts hearing cases of alleged membership of an illegal organisation will be able to draw inferences from refusal of the accused to answer Garda questions.

It requires the defendants in such cases to notify the prosecution in advance of witnesses they intend to call. It also broadens the definition of relevant "conduct" of an accused, permissible as evidence, to include "movements, activities, actions or associations".

The Bill would create five new offences, including that of "directing an unlawful organisation" - punishable by sentences up to and including life imprisonment. Collecting information which could be used by illegal organisations is another new offence, as are withholding information, possession of articles connected with certain offences, and training persons in the use of firearms or explosives.

Perhaps most controversially, the Bill would allow the confiscation of property knowingly used for subversive activities, unless the court is satisfied that there would be "a serious risk of injustice" in such forfeiture.

The legislation would lapse unless renewed by the Dail at the end of 2000.

The legislation has been broadly welcomed by the main Opposition parties, but Democratic Left said it would table an amendment during tomorrow's Dail debate seeking to make the measures conditional on the establishment, as promised in the Belfast Agreement, of a Human Rights Commission.

The party wants the commission set up by the end of next March, failing which the emergency law would lapse. However, a Government spokesman said last night that, while there was no linkage with the new legislation, some progress had already been made on the commission proposal and "it could even be established within the sort of time frame DL are talking about".

Publishing the Bill yesterday, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said it contained "harsh measures which were regrettably necessary in the fight to ensure that the will of the vast majority of the people on this island is not thwarted by the murderous activities of a few".

Great care had been taken, he added, to ensure that the measures "struck the right balance and were proportional to the serious threat which was faced" in the wake of the Omagh bombing. Fine Gael confined its criticism to saying that the Government should have addressed the problem of the "Real IRA" before Omagh, but a spokesman said it would be tabling amendments at the committee stage. Labour also broadly welcomed the Bill.

However the Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, said he would be opposing the Bill, saying the "Real IRA" was being paralysed by public opposition and not by "repressive legislation".

The new laws would be as counterproductive as that introduced in Britain after the Birmingham pub bombing, he added, and he accused the Government of allowing inadequate time for debate.

Republican Sinn Fein said the provision "for the seizure of family farms and even family homes is reminiscent of the Acts of Attainder of 1798 and even of the Penal Laws." The party's president, Mr Ruairi O Bradaigh, added that the provision for advance notification of defence witnesses would leave such persons "open to harassment and possible intimidation by the Special Branch".

Taken as a whole, he said, the Bill was a "a total undermining" of the concept of due process.

"First the jury was abolished and now the evidence necessary for conviction is reduced to what is negligible."