Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has defended the provisions of the new Criminal Justice Bill, which will allow the non-jury Special Criminal Court to try cases involving criminal gangs.
Opposition parties and rights organisations had criticised the time limits imposed on debating the Bill in the Dáil.
The debate on the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill has now ended, but Mr Ahern said extra time will be provided for consideration of the bill next week.
Defending the measures, Mr Ahern said the Special Criminal Court was needed to deal with jury intimidation, saying it was 'absolutely unrealistic' to expect every juror in cases involving organised criminal gangs to withstand intimidation or threats.
He said any doubts he had about the measures were dispelled by listening to the family of Roy Collins, who had been threatened by Limerick gang members after his murder.
The legislation would also enable a garda of any rank with the appropriate expertise to give opinion evidence against a suspected criminal gang member.
The Bill defines a criminal gang as a group of at least three people whose main purpose or activity is serious crime.
Cuffe critical of Bill's introduction
Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe was critical of rushing the legislation through the house and expressed doubt about using the Special Criminal Court to deal with gang-related crime
Mr Cuffe said that court is not the solution to witness intimidation as they will still have to give evidence.
Fine Gael's Charlie Flanagan also criticised the way the Bill had been introduced.
He said it was madness that the debate on it was taking place under such strict time limits.
Those criticisms have been echoed by Amnesty International and the Irish Council of Civil Liberties. The ICCL said the measures were akin to those of a police state.
Deputy Flanagan also said there should have been more consultation with Opposition parties in drawing up the measures.
And Labour's Sean Sherlock questioned if juries - as opposed to witnesses - were really being intimidated.
He also queried if the legislation would withstand a legal challenge.
His party colleague and justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte said the transfer of criminal cases to the non-jury Special Criminal Court was fundamentally dishonest.
Witness difficulties
Minister Ahern also said that as gang-related violence intensifies and becomes more ruthless, garda investigations are being hampered by the fact that witnesses were not willing to come forward.
'We cannot standby and allow the justice process to be undermined by the intimidation of witnesses and said the Bill will go some way in addressing that.'
He said there were 17 gang-related murders so far this year, compared to 16 for the whole of 2008.
Mr Ahern also told the Dáil there had been suggestions that some elements of the Bill are unconstitutional but he said the advice from the Attorney General is that there are no grounds for that belief.
