| AP 2-Jul-1996 22:02 EDT REF5917
Copyright 1996. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Ireland Bolsters Police Force
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Ireland will hire hundreds more police and
expand its prisons as part of a crime crackdown following the gangland
murder of a reporter and the IRA slaying of a policeman, the prime
minister said Tuesday.
"Armed organized criminals and armed organized subversives" are two of
the greatest threats to Ireland, Prime Minister John Bruton said.
"No government effort will be spared in confronting the scourge of
organized crime and in particular the scourge of drugs," he said a news
conference in Dublin.
Bruton and Irish President Mary Robinson joined thousands of mourners
Saturday at the funeral for journalist Veronica Guerin, murdered for
her tenacious crime reporting.
After years of relative calm, the republic faces an upsurge in crime,
much of it drug-related and based in the capital, Dublin, where nearly
a third of the country's 3.6 million people live.
Guerin was shot five times while she sat in her car at a Dublin traffic
light on June 24. Police detective Jerry McCabe was gunned down by the
Irish Republican Army as he escorted a postal van in County Limerick on
June 7.
The crime-fighting measures announced Tuesday include the recruitment
of 400 more police officers and the hiring of civilians to take over
desk jobs to free another 500 officers for street patrol.
Other measures include prison expansion to house another 500 inmates;
moves to drive drug dealers from public housing projects; creation of
a new crime-busting force; and the appointment of more judges.
Last week, the government announced plans for a public referendum on
tightening bail laws and said it would introduce changes to restrict or
end the right of suspected drug-traffickers to stay silent after being
charged.
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| DUBLIN, Feb 4 (Reuter) - A thirty-two-year old Dublin man was charged on
Tuesday with the June 1996 murder of Veronica Guerin, Ireland's foremost
investigative reporter.
Paul Ward, was formally charged at Kilmainham court, Dublin, court officials
said.
Ward was already in custody on two charges of conspiracy to murder Guerin but
both these charges were withdrawn, the court was told.
Ward said nothing when the charge was read out to him, police said.
Guerin specialised in stories uncovering Ireland's gangland underworld,
especially the growing drug trade and people who enriched themselves from it.
She was shot dead in her car by a man on a motorbike near Dublin last June.
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