Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Bille seo. Bhí go leor oibre ar bun ag mo chomhghleacaí, Mr. Dermot Ahern, nuair a bhí sé mar Aire, maidir leis an gceist seo. Tá go leor dúshlán ag baint leis an gceist. Cé go bhfáiltím roimh an méid atá sa Bhille seo, nílim cinnte go réiteoidh sé an fhadhb. Go minic, bíonn an dream a bhíonn in aghaidh Bille i gcásanna mar seo eolasach. Bíonn acmhainní acu agus troidfidh siad ina aghaidh go dtí an líne.

I welcome the Bill, which is very timely. Work was taking place for some considerable time in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform under the predecessor of the current Minister to determine what could be done to tackle this issue. In welcoming the provisions of the Bill, I still do not believe it will be very easy to secure convictions. This presents a challenge. At meetings all over the country in recent years, people have asked me why we did not lock up the wrongdoers. We need to ensure wrongdoers end up in prison and that this is achieved within the law. I used to try to explain patiently to people that certain rules could not be broken. The first rule is that there must be a judicial process and that one cannot put people in prison unless there is a conviction. One cannot deem somebody guilty because the Government says so.

It is important, notwithstanding the frustration that arises from the patient, proper application of the law, that there be a proper process. The many people who have called for a less-than-proper process are making a mistake that will have long-term consequences. The integrity of the legal system is important.

The second rule is perfectly clear but many ordinary people do not grasp it fully. It is that the Government has no role in prosecution. It is in a corrupt state that politicians have an influence in deciding who is convicted of crime and who goes to prison. It is very important that we maintain the separation of powers, which is so central.

White-collar crime is very serious and I appreciate that the legal and illegal actions of people – including grossly negligent actions, be they legal or otherwise – have cost people very dearly in the past five to ten years. They have caused great grief, sorrow and difficulties for people. I remember saying that a perfect example of the system getting its person on foot of the commission of a heinous crime is the Guildford and Coventry bombings and what happened subsequently. The authorities getting their men by taking shortcuts with the legal system and the release of those whom they put in prison are the events that are now remembered. It is often forgotten that many people died in those horrendous events and that the perpetrators have never been brought to justice properly. There was no proper conviction. It is important when following a legal process that it be robust and proper and that a proper decision be made at the end that can withstand any subsequent test.

There are very good suggestions in the Bill as to how we can address serious abuses. Deputy Barry outlined these very well. He referred to how one can reduce the number of ways in which one can frustrate the system. He referred to passwords. It is absolutely scandalous that they were withheld but it was done nevertheless. With regard to making paperwork very difficult, I understand that in some cases there can be up to 150,000 e-mails. If one does not trawl through them all before trying to secure a prosecution in court, the defence will refer to one that one has not seen in order to try contradict one. The provision of evidence in a usable way and the suspension of detention procedures all make sense.

I hope the legislation works. It will make the system better but I do not know whether it will address the need of the public for relatively quick prosecution in cases where it is felt there is a very clear prima facie case. Mr. Justice Kelly spoke about having a clear prima facie case that one cannot get into court. I hope the legislation delivers in this regard. It would be very good if it did. People are totally frustrated but I do not underestimate what the Government is up against. Given the nature of the crimes in question and the types of people one is fighting, we must accept that these steps, welcome as they are, might not resolve all our difficulties.

Let us consider the nature of white-collar crime. The nature of a violent crime is very visible. If somebody hits another individual and there are witnesses, it is relatively easy to identify who got hit, who did the hitting and that hitting somebody is a crime. In the case of white-collar crime, the first step is to prove the action was illegal. There were many actions in the past five or ten years that were grossly negligent but the question of whether they were illegal is a different issue. It is not illegal to have a company that goes bust as long as one has not traded illegally or recklessly. Therefore, the first step is to establish the legality, or otherwise, of the action. Even if this can be done very simply, one must determine whether one can obtain evidence to prove it in a court of law.

It might be commonly perceived or "known" that a thing happened, but one of the huge challenges is whether one can get the evidence to prove it in a court of law. It is not only a case of proving an illegal action took place but my understanding is that sometimes the problem is who knew what, which person it was and if it was the person who is arraigned before the court who was knowingly and willingly guilty of the illegal action.

The final issue, and this is probably indicative of the eternal unfairness of life, is that one is fighting people who will hire the best legal experts in the country and will spare no time or expense in fighting the case. One of the interesting and difficult challenges facing a government and state is the fact that in these high-powered cases involving very influential and powerful people one often finds that the resources they can muster to fight the state are much greater than those the state can muster to fight them. The Director of Public Prosecutions or the Director of Corporate Enforcement is trying to deal with many cases at the same time.

I heard the Minister discussing this Bill on the radio following its publication. He was asked the obvious question, one which we asked many times of our colleagues when we were in government, as to whether the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Garda Síochána fraud squad had sufficient resources to do the job. The Minister gave the same answer that we had given many times, which is that they do have the resources and they have been told that if they believe they do not have the resources and that the logjam is due to a lack of resources, those resources will be made available. I am glad this Government is following the same policy we followed, although it was probably not recognised as our policy at the time, that resources should not be an impediment to dealing with this issue. No doubt, however, these various offices would also argue that resources is not just a question of bodies but that they need people who know what they are doing, understand the work being done and who can follow it through to bring the matter to a conclusion. Therefore, we face huge challenges.

A point I have strongly made for some time is that unless we keep working on this issue, society will be seen to be unfair by those who are least well off. They know that if they are caught shoplifting, they are likely to get a custodial sentence following summary judgment in the district court. It might be somebody who did not get a chance in life or somebody with an addiction issue. They then see the State forever chasing people who are considered by the public, and obviously I cannot prejudge a situation ahead of court proceedings, to be responsible for serious wrongdoing and illegality. The State appears to be incapable of getting such people into court. As long as that injustice exists, there will be people who believe that the law is less than equal. It might be equal in theory but the reality is that those who have knowledge, background and commit certain types of crime have a much better chance of getting away with it than the perhaps more innocent people who get convictions in our courts.

Another matter I feel strongly about, have fought with previous colleagues about and on which I spoke in the context of another Bill before the Dáil is our tendency to think that prison should always be the solution for people who are caught for certain types of crime. A statistic I recall from the time I had responsibility for the RAPID programme has stayed in my mind. It is that half of the prisoners in the jails in Dublin came from six parishes in Dublin. I do not believe that the people in those six parishes were born worse people than anybody else. I do not believe people are intrinsically good or bad by virtue of the parish in which they are born. In examining this issue we must deal with achieving a much greater balance in the perception of the law by the people of this country.

I have always believed, particularly in the case of young people, that putting people into prison is as good as putting them into an academy of crime. I welcomed the Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Amendment) Bill. Putting people into community service is a far more practical way of helping them in a positive way than thinking that punishing them by locking them up will solve the problem. This week there was a meeting of the joint policing committee in Galway during which the issue of graffiti was raised. The Garda Síochána told us that it cannot get enough people from the probation service to remove all the graffiti. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, is dealing with overcrowded prisons every day. At the meeting I made the case for opening the doors of the prisons, removing everybody who is there for less than a year and has only six months to serve and making them paint over the graffiti every day. They would be better off, society would be better off and we would be moving in the right direction.

One of the big problems one faces in government is what I call "the memo". Government is very sectionalised, as I am sure the members of the new Government are discovering. When one is outside government one tends to look at matters in a connected way and one tries to have a holistic policy. However, what happens in Government Departments is that one gets a series of memos; they seem to come on a conveyor belt. It many cases the memo has a very narrow focus, which is fine in itself but does not connect to a holistic view of how one solves problems. Therefore, each Department fights its own corner perfectly, and the Department of Justice and Equality, for example, does not want to give up money by letting prisoners out on probation, as it will not have as much money next year. The holistic approach to government is sometimes lacking. I do not blame a particular Government for that, as it has long been the way, but that does not mean I do not believe we should tackle this problem.

Céim mhór chun cinn atá sa Bhille seo agus tá go leor inti gur féidir a mholadh. Mar a dúirt mé ar ball, bhí obair ar bun ar an mBille seo i bhfad sular tháinig an tAire Shatter isteach sa Roinn. Guím chuile rath ar an Bhille agus tá súil agam go gcuirfear i bhfeidhm é. Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuil ceisteanna beaga go gcaithfear a scrúdú agus ba cheart iad a scrúdú, ach is Bille é atá práinneach. Mura réiteoidh an Bille seo an fhadhb, tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach go bhféachann muid an bhfuil aon rud eile gur féidir linn a dhéanamh le déanamh cinnte gur féidir le daoine a dhéanann coireanna den chineál seo a thabhairt os comhair na cúirte chomh sciobtha agus is féidir daoine eile a thabhairt os comhair na cúirte agus nach feicfear go bhfuil deighilt sa phobal idir iad siúd a bhfuil acmhainní acu agus atá ag plé leis an gcineál seo coireanna agus iad siúd nach bhfuil chomh maith as agus a dhéanann rud ar bith atá níos feiceáilí agus níos eásca a dhaoradh i gcúirt.

Braitheann gnáth pobal na tíre seo go bhfuil éagóir déanta ag na daoine seo. Braitheann siad go bhfuil éagóir fíor-thromchúiseach déanta orthu ag caimiléireacht ag daoine mór le rá. Tá siad ag cur na ceiste chuile lá faoi cén fáth nach bhfuil na daoine seo tugtha os comhair na cúirte. Tuigim dóibh agus tuigim an frustrachas a bhaineann, ó thaobh an phobail de, leis an gceist seo.

Mar sin, tá súil agam, nuair a bheidh sé seo ina Acht, go dtiocfaidh sé cuid den bhealach leis an fhadhb seo a réiteach. Tá faitíos an tsaoil orm nach réiteoidh sé an fhadhb uilig de bharr scála na faidhbe, ach fiú más chéad céim é leis na fadbhanna atá ann daoine a chionntú as coireanna den chineál seo, fiú muna bhfuil ann ach an chéad céim, cuirim fáilte roimhe. Tá súil agam, muna n-éireoidh leis seo na torthaí ar mhaith linn a bhaint amach, go dtiocfaimid ar ais agus go dtógfaimid tuilleadh céimeanna le déanamh cinnte go dtabharfar na daoine atá cionntach as coireanna, na bónaí bána mar a thugtar orthu - is sean téarma é"white collar" agus ní chaitheann mórán daoine white collars inniu, ach caitheann mise iad - os comhair na cúirte. Tá sé tábhachtach go bhfeicfear gurb é an córas dlí céanna atá i bhfeidhm dóibh siúd agus atá i gceist do chuile duine eile den phobal.

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