Mr. Ben Ryan:

On drug seizures and large seizures of drugs transiting through the country and through the south coast in particular, I will not comment on anything to do with defence, with respect, or defence budgets. An Garda Síochána has seen significant seizures and successes as recently as, I think, February, when there was a joint operation between An Garda Síochána and Revenue in County Cork. There was a seizure with an estimated value of €32.8 million of synthetic opioids. It is seeing successes. We would like to see more people in An Garda Síochána. We have been assisting it with attempts to increase recruitment and throughput through Templemore. There is a challenging recruitment environment at the moment, not just for An Garda Síochána but for any employer. There is much more fluidity and mobility. People pick a job for a couple of years and then decide they want to broaden their horizons and do other jobs. That is not unique to An Garda Síochána. It is the case across the board. We have it in our Department; I am sure every other Department has it as well. The job for life career attitude seems to have disappeared, largely. Despite that, we are doing everything we can to support An Garda Síochána to increase recruitment and a budget has been provided to do that.

CAB has continued to expand its efforts and we continue to support it in adapting to the changing model of organised crime. In my response to Deputy Ward's question, I was not clear on one point. The thresholds have been reduced to assets of €5,000 and cash of €1,000 since the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Act 2016. That is to target the mid-level foot soldiers as well. The Deputy spoke about people operating and controlling things from other jurisdictions. We have collaborated with other jurisdictions to try to formalise extradition treaties and mutual legal assistance treaties. We are getting good co-operation. We are happy with the level of co-operation. These processes take a significant amount of time. There are different legal systems and languages and translation issues and so on. We have to make sure that if someone is to be formally sought to be extradited back to this country, the case is watertight and legally robust and there are no technicalities that someone can get away with. Extensive work is going on in that regard between us, An Garda Síochána, the Director of Public Prosecution's office and the Department of Foreign Affairs. There are concerted efforts on international co-operation to target drug dealers operating abroad. I think those were the three points the Deputy asked me to comment on.