Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am glad to hear that. I accept the Minister has already indicated he would give this matter priority. However, my other concern in this area is that although we are about to address the EU reform treaty, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the British Government are already seeking derogations on matters regarding criminality and justice operations on the unsatisfactory basis that two different systems operate in Europe, namely, the common law system in Ireland and Britain and the continental system in most of the rest of Europe.

Maximum co-operation, including joint operations, is required across member states on all issues of criminality. We cannot use excuses to seek a derogation from jurisprudence issues. We must be fully involved and it behoves the Department to come clean on the issue. We cannot stand idly by while cross-border trafficking of drugs, weapons and people is the order of the day, nor can we can take a position that we will stand alone with Britain because we are not part of mainland Europe and do not trust the jurisprudence or police forces of other countries. We must adopt a common approach and become fully involved in the reform treaty on this specific crime issue.

See this speech in context