THE Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, has said he is concerned about a "trend towards aggression" in some anti drug protests in Dublin. He said that he regarded threats to people told to leave their homes within 24 hours as "unacceptable", as was holding protests outside particular homes.
"It's a worrying development from a policing point of view", he said. "I don't like what I see on television. I don't like the reports I'm getting from my people on the ground in relation to the behaviour of some people on these marches."
While he understood that some protesters were frustrated about drug dealing in the city, he could not accept their tactics. They should "let the gardai do their job", he said. "We need the support of the community."
The Commissioner said that plans were being drawn up to make Garda operations against dealers in the city more effective and these would be finalised shortly.
Mr Byrne was speaking after participating in an international conference on forensic science in a Dublin hotel yesterday. The conference was organised by the State Forensic Science Laboratory to celebrate the 21st anniversary of its founding.
Speakers included Dr John Harbison, the State Pathologist, who called for a reorganisation of the State's forensic pathology system.
There was a need for a new State forensic service, he said, which would work on all cases of unnatural death. At present, Dr Harbison and his assistants work only on murder cases.
Setting up an institute of pathology could help to ensure higher standards. "There's no control whatsoever, except by coroners themselves. There's many a coroner has said: `Doctor, your reports are too long, can you not make them shorter?' And I mean, if that's the attitude, how can we get quality control?"
Dr Harbison said that a postgraduate education programme for coroners was needed.
The conference was also addressed by the new Assistant Garda Commissioner, Mr Tony Hickey, who took up the position yesterday.
Mr Hickey reviewed a number of the high profile investigations on which he had worked. He said that the McArthur case in 1982 had been "one of those dream ones where everything worked right". However, in the Shergar case, where there had been delays in the theft of the racehorse being reported to gardai, "everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong".
Mr Hickey said that the "human element" had to be taken into account in serious crime investigations. People were volatile and could behave irrationally, and what was often described as "organised crime" was usually quite disorganised.
Mr Hickey, who has been leading the investigation into the murder of the journalist Ms Veronica Guerin last June, said that he thought those who had killed her "didn't think out the consequences".
It is likely that Mr Hickey will be appointed regional commissioner for the Border area, based in Sligo. That post was recently vacated by Assistant Commissioner Mr Tom King, who took charge of the Dublin Metropolitan Area.
. A man was being questioned by gardai in Dublin last night about the Guerin murder. He was arrested yesterday morning and held at Lucan Garda station under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, which allows detention without charge for 48 hours.