Parliament: Irish Terrorism Bill: Ahern promises crackdown in Republic will lapse in two years

IRELAND'S TOUGH new anti-terrorist laws will lapse at the end of 2000, the Dail was told yesterday as it approved wide-ranging measures to counter the threat of the Real IRA.

Dublin also dropped an earlier proposal that a court should be able to draw inferences from a suspect's silence during questioning where a person is being accused of membership of a proscribed organisation. But such inferences may still be drawn in prosecution of other listed terrorist offences.

Opposition parties sought further safeguards against possible misuse of the new legislation, including video taping of interviews, before the Dail voted late last night.

The coalition government accepted that a suspect must be produced in court before a new 24-hour extension of the current maximum 48 hours' detention for questioning can be approved.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, promised the new measures "will lapse once we can be sure they are no longer necessary". The new provisions include confiscation of land and property used in terrorist operations, and making it an offence to direct an illegal organisation, unlawfully collect security information, or possess items connected with weapons and explosives offences.

Land confiscation is intended to deter those, including farmers, on the fringes of republican groups who provided vital support by storing arms and explosives.

The opposition Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, warned that Tuesday's statement by the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, saying violence "must be a thing of the past" was only a wish, "not a statement of what the IRA will actually do".

He said the IRA, by ruling out decommissioning, had indicated its intention "to maintain its military capacity indefinitely".

Mr Bruton alleged that a Provisional IRA statement in April which sought "the luxury of an each way bet on the Good Friday Agreement" had created political space for the Real IRA to "claim a spurious sense of republican justification for bombing campaigns".

He warned that new, violent splinter groups could be spawned by the gap between Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein positions.

The Labour leader, Ruairi Quinn, said Ireland and Britain had a moral responsibility to defend democracy with effective measures against the "fanatical and violent thugs behind the mass murder in Omagh" who were intent on wrecking the peace process.

The Democratic Left (DL) leader, Proinssias de Rossa, said Dublin should show solidarity with Omagh by sharing the costs of repairing the damage. DL sought publication every three months of lists of people held under the new laws, saying extra garda powers should be conditional on the setting up of the Human Rights Commission promised in the Good Friday Agreement.

Only Sinn Fein's sole TD (MP), Caoimhghin O'Caolain,and the independent socialist, Joe Higgins, voted against the measures. Mr O'Caolain said "a return to a failed repressive agenda would run completely contrary to the Good Friday Agreement". Mr Higgins warned the changes held "major implications" for civil rights.

The house observed a minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Omagh bomb and the Ballymoney fire.