Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

Operations against persons involved in serious crime in this jurisdiction are undertaken on an ongoing basis. Such criminals, their operating methods, criminal interests and financial assets are proactively targeted through intelligence-led operations such as Operation Anvil. Such operations are primarily undertaken by specialist units of An Garda Síochána, including the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Garda national drugs unit and organised crime unit and the Criminal Assets Bureau. Of course, multi-agency approaches play a key role in these matters and will continue to be used in our response to such crime.

The Criminal Assets Bureau is being actively utilised to identify and target funds accumulated by criminals in order to seize such assets and to deprive them of the profits of their criminal activity. The social welfare inspectors attached to it investigate and determine the social welfare entitlements of persons who are suspected of deriving assets from criminal activity and officers from the Department of Social and Family Affairs can make referrals to it for investigation. In addition, Garda Síochána asset profilers, of which there are 103 and who collate information at a local level and carry out preparatory groundwork in advance of a full investigation by CAB, are now in place in every Garda division.

Since its inception in 1996, the CAB has saved over €4 million in social welfare payments and recovered overpayments of almost €3 million. The Department of Social and Family Affairs continues to make very considerable savings in its Vote through fraud controls with savings estimated at €476 million being achieved in 2008. In support of this work, the Department has an extensive legal structure to facilitate the sharing of data with other Departments and specified bodies, such as An Garda Síochána, for the purpose of combating social welfare fraud and data matching is used as a method of identifying high risk social welfare claims for review. There is also close co-operation between the Department of Social and Family Affairs and An Garda Síochána on the ground in regard to multi-agency vehicle checkpoints and personation cases. The Department of Social and Family Affairs control division also deal with individual enquiries from An Garda Síochána as they arise concerning the type of issues raised by the Deputy.

See this speech in context