THE Minister for Justice had presided over "an astonishing catalogue of cock ups" since she took office, the PD spokeswoman on justice, Ms Liz O'Donnell said.

With the latest fiasco at the Special Criminal Court, she no longer commanded confidence.

The Ministers and Secretaries Act, which the Government now proposed to amend, conferred enormous privileges on Ministers. The Minister for Justice, for instance, had influence over promotions to the top ranks of the Garda, the governors of prisons and the elevation of people to the District Court bench.

"The Minister cannot continue to enjoy all the powers and privileges of her office while, at the same time, seeking to ignore the duties and responsibilities."

Shortage of money was not the problem in the prison system. "We have more prison officers than prisoners in our jails. Yet overtime spending seems to be out of all control." One prison officer last year earned £827 a week in overtime and extras. How, she asked, could anybody earn almost three times annual salary in overtime? "Are there any controls in place at all?"

During the last two years there had been bungling and incompetence in virtually every area within the administrative ambit of the Department of Justice - extradition, immigration, the prison service and the appointment of judges. Mrs Owen was "a Minister in whom confidence has been eroded by her own failures".

MR NOEL DEMPSEY (FF, Meath) challenged the Minister for Justice's version of events.

He asked: "Could anyone outside this House believe that a judge in the most sensitive court in the land could write to the Minister and that the Minister would not see the letter?

"Imagine the Attorney General and a judge writing to a Minister and someone in the Minister's office deciding these letters are not important enough to bring to the Minister's attention."

The Taoiseach, he said, had outlined the achievements of Mrs Owen on the previous night. But he had omitted the most important one. "After more than a decade, this Government has found an antidote to GUBU. It is called NORA: not our responsibility anyway.

The Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mr Pat Rabbitte, claimed that the opposition parties could not even agree on how to oppose the Government in the Dail. This did not augur well for Ms Mary Harney's "I want to be Bertie's Tanaiste" scenario.

Describing the opposition's performance as "desultory, uninspired, almost perfunctory", he asked how Ms Harney could justify her claim that the Taoiseach was running from responsibility.

"The only thing running yesterday, as the day wore on, was Deputy John O'Donoghue's, mascara. How sad to see this previously unadorned spokesman reduce to a film extra by the Fianna Emil make up department."

Comparisons between letters from Attorneys General in 1994 and 1996 were facile. It was important to record that, according to recent testimony, if a letter from the AG in 1994 was not passed on to the then Taoiseach, it was only because it was in the hands of the present Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern.

Mr Joe Walsh (FE, Cork SouthWest) said that they had witnessed the bizarre spectacle of the Taoiseach coming into the House and expressing full and total confidence in his Minister for Justice while at the same time virtually dismantling her Department.

The Fianna bait spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, said that the Minister and the Attorney General had failed to honour their obligations to the Irish people under the Constitution, laws and court precedent.

What has happened goes far beyond a mistake, beyond an error. It quite clearly amounts to gross and abject negligence. At a time when this Government should be seen to improve and increase public confidence in the Irish criminal justice system this latest debacle only serves to undermine the system and those who operate within it."

The deputy leader of Fianna Fail, Ms Mary O'Rourke, said that crucial action needed to implement the Cabinet decision on Judge Lynch had been "casually neglected".

August and September had gone by in a "haze of inactivity", she said. "On October 2nd, the Attorney General bestirred himself on the foot of legal rumblings and wrote to the Minister for Justice about, Judge Lynch. No reply, and a month later, he wrote again."