A PROMINENT member of a review group appointed last year to advise the Taoiseach on reforming the Garda had already been helping Fianna Fail to draw up its anti crime plans, the party leader said at the weekend.
Mr Bertie Ahern said he met Mr John Timoney, former deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department, in the US last year.
At a weekend conference where Mr Timoney publicly endorsed Fianna Fail's adoption of his zero tolerance scheme, Mr Ahern described travelling to the US to learn about it from Mr Timoney and others.
"One thing I'm not is a criminal lawyer and it was heavy stuff," Mr Ahern said. Those teaching him spoke about "drug courts and what you can do and what you can't do, and I stuck it out all day".
In Government, Fianna Fail would concentrate first on zero tolerance of drug dealers, said Mr Ahern. There would be "relentless pursuit" of them and the scheme was not about focusing on "pavement artists street musicians and chocolate thieves".
Mr Timoney was asked at the press conference whether zero tolerance could work where a police chief is not committed to it.
The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, has already described it as an unworkable idea and "just a buzzword".
Mr Timoney said there had been "some misunderstanding regarding what zero tolerance is all about".
"It's not about double parked cars. There had to be "a clear connection to a crime".
It also meant making the police work harder and ensuring "that judges can't take two hour lunches".
One of the first problems which had perplexed him when he became deputy police commissioner in New York was the growth of "squeegee pests", the car windscreen cleaners hanging around traffic lights who would break the car aerial or even throw a punch at the driver if they were not paid.
He had gone to one street junction where some of these "knuckleheads" were still about, after they had rejected help by the city's housing and social services.
"I said to one: The game is over, just get out of town'. He said: `I'm just trying to make a living' and I said `Yeah? Well, go live somewhere else'."
Mr Timoney denied reports that he had criticised the Irish authorities for tolerating a high level of crime in Dublin and ignoring his advice.
He added that he had confidence in the Garda Commissioner.
"Pat Byrne was the perfect man for the job but Pat Byrne and the Garda Siochana need help in my opinion."
He said that while he and his former chief at the NYPD, Mr Bill Bratton, were selling zero tolerance around the world, he had not been paid by Fianna Fail for appearing at the press conference.
He added that wherever the idea of zero tolerance was introduced, it always attracted criticism from "naysayers and civil libertarians".