"The bill must be continually reviewed and if necessary updated to ensure that the criminal justice system fully meets the ever-present challenge which criminality presents to society, " the justice minister said at the time.

The measures in the original bill included statutory powers to preserve a crime scene, powers in relation to search warrants, increased detention powers for arrestable offences and a clampdown on those involved in firearms offences.

The bill has yet to be discussed in any detail in the Dail, and over the last two years the minister has made 118 proposals for amendments to the original piece of legislation. Among the proposed changes are measures for dealing with organised crime, drugs offences, the setting up of a drug offenders' register, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos), sentencing, and firearms control.

The opposition parties have criticised the number of changes proposed by McDowell. "The minister has been grafting on various bits and pieces for the last 18 months when he should have taken his first bill and made it law and then came up with another bill full of all his amendments. So far he has produced 118 and there will probably be more before it becomes law, " said Joe Costello, Labour's justice spokesman.

Last week, McDowell publicly accepted responsibility for the long delay in the bill's enactment. But this weekend a spokeswoman for the minister predicted the legislation would be enacted before the end of the current Dail session. "The minister is determined to have the bill at committee stage in the Dail before Easter and to have it into law before the summer, " she said.

But opposition politicians are dubious about the timetable. "It is extraordinarily optimistic given how slow it has been to get this far. I would be very surprised if we see the bill made law by the summer, as it has not even reached committee stage, " Costello said.