Almost 5,000 criminal cases are being delayed for up to six months because of staff shortages in the State's forensic science laboratory, according to the IMPACT trade union.
The union said that staff increases recommended by an independent consultants' report had not been implemented. The report, by Deloitte and Touche, published last March, said staff numbers had not kept pace with growing caseloads, and recommended that 14 extra technical and professional staff be taken on.
It found that individual case-loads had risen by nearly 16 per cent between 1991 and 1999. It also recommended a national DNA database, organisational changes and improved payments for forensic scientists.
The review was set up to address problems recruiting professional and technical staff, and was part of the settlement of a dispute over staffing in 1999.
Mr Ray Ryan, the IMPACT official dealing with the laboratory, said: "The war against serious crime is being compromised by Government inaction. Staff and management are struggling to provide a vital service under tremendous strain while the backlog grows by the day."
Replying to the criticism the Department of Justice acknowledged that the work-load of the laboratory had been on the increase in recent years, arising from the problems of drug-related crime and, this year, the need to examine suspect cattle ear-tags as a result of the foot-and-mouth crisis.
"In relation to the processing of evidence, the management of the laboratory have instituted a procedure where any cases, where they are notified that the result is urgently required, are expedited," the statement continued.
It added that the quality of the work carried out by the laboratory had always been held in the highest esteem, and that it would take measures to ensure that this would continue, and that no prosecution would be dropped or cases collapse due to delays in the processing of evidence by the laboratory.