Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will take the questions in reverse order. There is no change in the position on the latter issue. I can see that people want to nail things down to the last degree. I do not have a changed position. I do not want to engage wordsmiths on this but it is off the table and that is it.

On the Criminal Assets Bureau, assets accumulated through criminal conduct by persons involved in paramilitary organisations are among those that have been investigated in recent years. In particular, many of the cross-Border cases involved people with past or current paramilitary links. A major joint initiative between the law enforcement authorities, North and South, has been undertaken, which has resulted in joint investigations on both sides of the Border. The CAB has worked with the Assets Recovery Agency and, in some cases, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland customs in carrying out processes in parallel in both jurisdictions. Assets have been frozen in both jurisdictions and a number of people face charges.

The legislation used by the CAB was amended in the past few days to allow criminality outside the jurisdiction to be taken into account and to allow the bureau to work more closely with the Assets Recovery Agency in Northern Ireland. These changes will help the CAB to examine assets with a paramilitary origin. The bureau keeps its resources under review in light of its workload but I understand there is no difficulty currently in this regard.

With regard to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, I will have to consult the chairperson. It is a long time since we met. I have an open enough mind if we can frame a helpful, constructive and useful agenda. If, in the few months prior to the British election, it turned into a criticising match, it would not serve any purpose. Perhaps the convenors could examine this. The Deputy will recall the difficulty in the forum's previous life was not alone the non-attendance of the Unionist parties, but their comments outside it, which were not always useful. If we can have a constructive agenda, I have an open mind on it.

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