The amount of Dáil time available to each individual minister is becoming scarcer.

Colleagues keen on re-election have a reduced attention span for ideas that are not vote-winners. Lobby groups and other vested interests know the political leaders are more susceptible to arm-twisting and are keen to avoid unseemly public rows.

Against this backdrop, it's time for McDowell to recall the challenge he gave his own party - the choice is to be either "radical or redundant." Take just two issues from last week - libel/privacy law reform and the garda reserve. There is strong opposition within the cabinet to McDowell's proposed defamation legislation unless it is coupled with a new privacy law. There is also an increasingly militant response from the various garda representative bodies to plans for a part-time reserve force. On both counts, the minister is in the right and he should stand firm.

The idea of the community police force is not new. The proposal was included in the PDs' general election manifesto at the 2002 general election. The concept was subsequently included in the programme for government agreed between Fianna Fáil and the PDs. The two parties said they would examine "the potential of the community warden service to enforce existing and new functions, so ensuring that more trained police officers are released to operational duties tackling crime and defending our citizens."

This government is frequently criticised - and often correctly so - for not delivering upon its promises. But with community policing the justice minister has delivered.

The garda reserve was one of the key elements in the Garda Síochána Act passed by the Oireachtas in 2005. Fine Gael and Labour supported the proposal. Members of the garda reserve will supplement the work of full-time officers. They will, in particular, develop - and in many cases, reestablish - close links with local communities. They will be a back-up to the Garda Síochána and increase the visible policing activity on the streets which the public continues to demand. The idea is that hundreds of reservists would marshal the crowds at events like today's 1916 parade while full-time gardaí can monitor the drugs gangs plying their trade elsewhere in the capital.

The various garda associations are now, however, trying to engage in a political fight after the voters and legislators have had their say. The leaders of these organisations have used language that is utterly insulting to the citizens who might want to put something back into the local communities by becoming involved in the reserve. "A mad hatter scheme, " in which full-time gardaí would act as "nursemaids" for the reservists, were the headline-seeking remarks from Joe Dirwan of the AGSI.

"We fear that the reserve will become a haven for people who are attracted by the idea of having police powers over their neighbours and of settling old scores under the presence of police action, " he declared.

Dirwan obviously hasn't been reading the transcripts of the Morris tribunal. A variety of controversies in recent times - and not just confined to Co Donegal - have raised serious questions over the use of "police powers" by the full-time force.

Dirwan and his colleagues in the other representative associations need to be reminded that we live in a democracy where the law of the land must not only be respected but upheld. Their words - and threatened actions - are bordering on treasonous. The justice minister must stand firm on the garda reserve, as he must also do so with his cabinet colleagues in their quest for privacy legislation.

The courts have until now adjudicated on a case-by-case basis between the two constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and a right to privacy. McDowell has already said that he believes a statutory privacy law may not be the best way to protect the individual's right to privacy. He had wanted to deal with this issue through a press council which would provide a no-cost and speedy means of redress for people who feel their privacy has been breached. But several Fianna Fáil ministers are concerned about the intrusiveness of sections of the media. They wanted to trade their support for the libel law reforms with new privacy legislation.

Now to appease these cabinet colleagues - and save his defamation bill - McDowell is set to draft a new privacy law in a recordbeating three weeks. There is more at stake here than concerns about certain newspapers seeking photographs of people in private places without their consent. A privacy law may allow powerful people to legally undermine and thwart media investigations into wrong-doing.

The minister knows it is going to be impossible to achieve consensus when one right - freedom of expression or privacy - can be said to outweigh the other in the public interest. As with the garda associations, the minister should stand firm with his ministerial colleagues.