Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Bill 2005. I understand that this Bill has already been discussed in the Seanad and is now coming before this House for discussion on Second Stage. There already have been some improvements and refinements to the Bill following discussion in the Seanad, and I am sure there will be more before this Bill is enacted.

This is a mutual assistance Bill and that means that different states can provide assistance for each other in the administration of criminal justice legislation in each country. The purpose of this Bill is to give effect to the provisions of seven mutual assistance instruments. The first one is the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Criminal Matters between Member States of the European Union. The second instrument is a protocol to the convention signed in Luxembourg in 2001. There is an agreement between the EU and the Republic of Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway and the application of certain provisions of the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Criminal Matters between Member States of the European Union. It is clear that some of these instruments go beyond the EU.

The Bill also deals with a Council framework decision on the executing of orders freezing property or evidence. It also deals with the second additional protocol to the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Criminal Matters between Member States of the European Union. Article 49 deals with implementing certain aspects of the Schengen Agreement. The Bill contains the mutual legal assistance aspect of a Council directive concerning the signature of agreements between the EU and the US on extradition and mutual assistance in criminal matters. That agreement was reached in Brussels in 2003 and is known as the EU-US Agreement.

I welcome these provisions and the Bill which will give effect to them. However, I take the opposite view to what is being said by most Members as I do not think the legislation goes far enough. The majority of these provisions deal with matters within the EU, but much crime is not confined to the EU. This is one of the first baby steps for states co-operating in fighting international crime. Many of the country's major crimes have a connection with international events. Much crime is international, it spills into various jurisdictions and requires an international response. I recall comical scenes from films and television I watched when I was younger. One saw in the United States a sheriff chasing a fellow in a car trying to get to the county boundary before he was arrested.

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