Mr. Tony Hickey:

The Chairman has given a pen picture of my CV. I do not intend to repeat it. I wish to speak briefly about my current involvement with Risk Management International, RMI, which is an independent international risk management service provider. We have many prominent clients in the retail, fuel, tobacco and clothing industries, including Philip Morris International. RMI is Ireland's largest independent risk management service provider. We offer a portfolio of risk-related services to enable clients to manage risks with greater confidence. We hope to help our clients solve a variety of problems that typically fall outside the scope of conventional mainstream business activities. RMI is the largest shareholder in React UK, which is the largest brand protection service provider in the UK for luxury goods. Since earlier this year, RMI has been operating a website, whistleblowerconfidential.ie, the purpose of which is to make confidential reporting work for concerned persons with truthful information. Since the beginning of this year, the service been generating notifications to organisations at risk, including banks, corporate entities and State agencies. Those reports generally relate to corporate fraud and assets put beyond the reach of creditors. The whistleblower service has generated intelligence and information that have led to major finds by law enforcement agencies. A recent find was one of the largest in the history of the State.

I will skip over the section of my presentation that sets out my CV, as the committee has heard it already. My expertise relates to the criminality surrounding the black market, rather than the economic issues highlighted by previous speakers. I will focus on this element of the matter under discussion in the first instance by providing some facts and information on what is known by the authorities at home and abroad about criminal involvement in the black market and retail crime. I will be happy to answer any questions as best I can after I have concluded. There are huge sums of money to be made from the black market. This explains its attractiveness to criminals and subversives. It is all about money and profit. Many of those behind the major cigarette smuggling and fuel laundering operations in this country are linked to defunct and active subversive organisations. Members will be aware that a new IRA faction, which has seemingly resulted from a merger of existing disparate dissident groups, claimed responsibility earlier this week for the recent murder of a prison officer, Mr. David Black, on the M1 road to Belfast. A report published last month by the US Congress, citing that country's Department of Homeland Security, listed the Real IRA, Hizbollah and Hamas as global terrorist groups that are financed through the illicit tobacco trade. The 2012 cross-Border organised crime assessment prepared by the Department of Justice and Equality and its counterpart in Northern Ireland in conjunction with the Garda Síochána and the PSNI stated that dissident republicans are generating significant sums of money from fuel laundering and tobacco smuggling.

We know from our history that smuggling is not new to Ireland. When I was in Derrynane a few years ago - it is not Golden Vale country - I wondered how the Liberator, Daniel O'Connell, had such a nice lifestyle and was able to be educated at home and abroad. I discovered that his ancestors engaged in the smuggling of wine from Spain. I think the Smugglers' Inn and the Smugglers' Cove are to be found in the area.