Mr. Kevin McMeel:

Not really. There are several points I would like to make. The figures returned to the Exchequer are the net figures. These are the figures we are able to recover from the sales. They are not the values that it cost the criminal. There is a well-documented case of a property that we secured in the Crumlin area. It was purchased for €250,000 and we estimate, based on expert evidence, that €750,000 worth of renovation was put into the property. The book value that cost the individual was €1 million but we will never be able to recover €1 million in selling the property. The property has a notoriety associated with it. It is slightly run down from the height when it was renovated. The figures we return to the Exchequer do not show the job that we are doing. The job we are doing is how much we deprive the criminal of the asset. If we deprive the criminal of a €1 million house, that is worth more than the value we return to the Exchequer. In that way the statistics can be slightly misleading.

After the initial stages there was a drop. In the first few years of CAB involvement, at the very start on its inception, large amounts of moneys were taken. I suppose what has happened is that the criminals have caught on to CAB being there. We rarely see circumstances where a drug dealer will purchase a mansion in an obvious location in this jurisdiction. Such houses are not being taken as frequently. It still happens but it does not happen as frequently as it did in 1996, 1997 or 1998. There has been a slight drop-off in this regard. I would argue, and I hope, that is disrupting criminals. They are not living where they want to live. They are being forced to live in jurisdictions other than the one in which they were born. If we are achieving that, then it is a disruption of the criminal lifestyle.