Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I have been raising the issue of precious metal operations, as well as the wider question of scrap metal, since 2009. I am delighted, therefore, that Deputy Mattie McGrath has taken this important initiative in bringing his Bill before the House.

The surge in thefts of precious metals is directly related to their escalating price, which is expected to continue for the next four to five years. It is, therefore, imperative that stricter safeguards are put in place, including enhanced controls for the purchasing, selling, trading, consignment selling or otherwise disposing of precious and scrap metals and a mechanism to verify that gold and other metal products offered for sale are from a legitimate source.

I was disappointed by the response from the Minister for Justice and Equality, who argued that the existing legislation is adequate to address the problem. He referred to the example of the Pawnbrokers Act 1964, but that legislation was introduced to invigilate a limited part of the trade in this area. The explosion of scrap metal yards and gold and other precious metal shops is a serious issue that must be addressed. I had several debates with the previous Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern, on this issue.

Deputy Catherine Murphy made an important point regarding Friday sessions and the efforts made by Deputies on all sides of the House to introduce legislation. Among the Private Members' Bills on the Clár is one I have prepared on cemeteries and crematoria. There is nothing to stop a Department from advising Deputies on how these Bills could be improved prior to their consideration in this House. It is regrettable that the Minister has indicated that he will not accept the Bill.

Metal theft is not a victimless crime. The Association of Chief Police Officers in the UK estimated in 2010 that metal theft cost the UK economy approximately £770 million per year. The Transport Committee of the House of Commons held an inquiry into the explosion in incidents involving theft of railway cables across the British rail system. The committee's report referred to the serious environmental and societal cost of these criminal activities.

Similar attacks on important national infrastructure and heritage sites have occurred in Ireland. I could cite numerous incidents of theft in my constituency of Dublin North-East, including an outrageous attack on the historic Belcamp College on the former Hely-Hutchinson estate. The college is near the location where one of the fathers of our nation, Henry Grattan, was born and walked as a boy before helping to secure legislative independence for this country and where Countess Markiewicz trained the young men and women of Na Fianna for the 1916 Rising. The college's priceless Harry Clarke stained glass windows had to be removed recently when a number of pipes and metal fittings were stolen. In Baldoyle, the vacant St. Mary's convent was also the site of an appalling robbery in which miscreants stripped metal from the building and left it bereft of pipework and heating infrastructure. In Donneycarney, Dublin City Council has just completed a major project to remediate pyrite problems in a senior citizen centre but the residents are unable to move back in because a number of the homes have been completely stripped of their metal fittings. The historic reliquary and tabernacle in St. Brigid's church in Killester, which was brought from Portugal 70 years ago, were stolen and have never been recovered.

Other speakers referred to the outrageous theft of major monuments, such as the bronze lady near Moate, County Westmeath, and the hitchhiker near Monasterevin, County Kildare. It is believed that both of these national monuments were melted down for their scrap metal value and have been destroyed forever. The Minister did not provide figures on the extent of the problem, however. The previous Minister indicated that the Garda Commissioner would publish a report on the issue but the only report of which I am aware is that published by the Sunday World on foot of its investigation into theft from Magee Barracks in Kildare town. This former Army barracks was completely stripped of electricity and telephone copper wiring worth approximately €50,000, as well as the bell from its clock tower. The newspaper also reported on a range of thefts of copper wiring, steel manhole covers and copper boilers from derelict factories, ghost estates and houses under construction. It estimated that criminals can get €6 per kilogram of copper, €1 per kilogram of lead and up to €200 per tonne of scrap steel. Just two years ago the same amount of scrap steel would have been worth €30. This indicates the scale of demand for these products and explains why rogue operators might be tempted to break the law.

A thorough analysis of the growing problem of scrap metals theft has been carried out in the UK over the past two years. The British House of Lords found that between March 2010 and March 2011, Network Rail recorded 995 incidents of cable theft resulting in train delays totalling over 6,000 hours. After the UK Justice Minister indicated that he has insufficient resources to address this issues, the British Transport Police were given responsibility for dealing with criminality in the scrap metal trade.

In contrast to the UK, there are few hard figures on the extent of metal theft in Ireland. The anecdotal evidence is very strong, however, as Deputy Harris suggested when he outlined the relationship between home burglaries and the sale of gold and other precious metals.

One of the main means of curbing metal theft is regulation of scrap metal dealers. Section 7 of the Bill would require scrap metal dealers to keep a record of every transaction involving scrap metal, including the signature of the person with whom the transaction was made, the time and date of the transaction, the name of the person or employee conducting the transaction, the name, date, sex, PPS number, residential address and contact details of the person selling the scrap metal and a signed undertaking that the property was not stolen. It has been proposed in the UK that CCTV should be installed beside the weigh bridges in scrap metal yards and that the police should be given powers to close scrap metal businesses and gold shops if they are not operating in accordance with the law. Given that special regulations aimed at curbing theft have applied to scrap metal dealers in the UK since the latter part of the 19th century, it is incredible that our legislation still contains such large gaps.

The vast majority of the gold trade is conducted through legitimate and respectable jewellery shops and businesses, but serious concerns have been raised about unlicensed and unregulated door-to-door operations that my constituents believe are facilitating the upsurge in house burglaries that target gold and other jewellery. This issue was first raised by Labour Party members at a constituency council. They were concerned at the advertising, the considerable upsurge in gold for cash operations and what they believed was a seemingly inexorable rise in house burglaries.

The Minister did not provide any figures or evidence. However, I note that in the last CSO figures released on recorded crime for quarter three of 2011, the headline for the whole report noted that the incidence of most offences fell while burglaries rose. There was an 8.5% rise in burglary and related offences from quarter three in 2010 to quarter three in 2011. In my constituency and my county of Fingal, Howth Garda Station recorded an increase of more than 6% in the incidence of burglary between January and December 2011.

As the Minister is aware, almost every Deputy is a member of a policing forum in various counties and cities. We have the first figures to hand for crime in each quarter and we examine these figures at the meetings. One common thread through all of the meetings in many counties is the rise in burglaries. This is clearly backed up by anecdotal evidence. I became aware of a case only last month in which a house was burgled and the only things stolen were gold jewellery items from the bedroom, precisely the type of theft referred to by several colleagues this morning.

When I first raised the difficulties with gold operators in the Dáil, I asked the former Minister with responsibility for justice, Dermot Ahern, to address the apparent total lack of regulation of the gold jewellery trade. My proposal on behalf of the Labour Party at that stage was for a licensing procedure to be put in place for the establishment and operation of all gold shops, on-street or door-to-door gold trading operations. I welcome the initiative of the Minister, Deputy Shatter, in this regard and that in the recent past all of these operations have been visited by the Garda Síochána. The Garda in each of the various districts is aware of the physical presence of gold operations, the type of advertising that takes place and the operations run in larger businesses. I am unsure to what extent they have invigilated scrap metal operations or examined the broader territory that Deputy Mattie McGrath has attempted to address this morning.

I welcome Part 2, which proposes that there must be a record of each transaction by a precious metal dealer, including the details I mentioned above. This will serve as a first step to giving us safe, secure scrap metal and gold and precious metal industries. I also welcome Part 5, which states that all precious metal dealers must register with An Garda Síochána and that dealers must comply with Garda requests for information on recent transactions. It is incredible that some of these operations have carried on with impunity in recent years. The former Minister, Dermot Ahern, was rather slow to address this.

I welcome the publication of what I presume is the review that the former Minister, Dermot Ahern, was to provide for the House. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, referred to this review in his contribution. It will allow for a comprehensive legislative response. When the Minister was out of the Chamber I noted that Departments could begin by helping Deputies, such as Deputy Mattie McGrath, who bring forward legislation when there are Bills on the clár relating to their area. Deputy Catherine Murphy noted that one of the Minister's predecessors, Mr. McDowell, apparently did this frequently. The Minister might be prepared to indicate to Deputies how a given Bill could be strengthened. This would enable a Bill to proceed to Committee Stage and to become law. The Minister is somewhat famous in the history of the Parliament because he introduced a major Bill affecting our social life, the Bill on separations, some decades ago. Subsequently, it became the law of the land for many years before divorce legislation was enacted. The Minister will understand the challenge facing a Deputy who is not part of the Government and I call on him to accept Deputy McGrath's proposals.

The Minister might also consider further measures such as those being considered in the United Kingdom. The British Transport Police appears to have been given a specific role by the Home Secretary and Chancellor with regard to the explosion of scrap metal and precious metal crime. Apparently, the police in the UK have the power to close a scrap metal or precious metal operation immediately if they believe it could represent a danger. They have also requested that all cash payments are ended and prohibited. I referred to some other measures including closed circuit television, CCTV. All trucks arriving with scrap should be filmed and the film retained.

This is a worldwide problem. Several American states are legislating for this at present, including West Virginia and Georgia, in addition to what is under way in the United Kingdom. This is a rather bad international problem and the impact, especially on our senior vulnerable citizens, is marked. I have referred to a rise in burglaries in our district and other districts throughout the country. I call on the Minister to take Deputy McGrath's Bill and allow it to go to on Committee State and to support it and makes the changes necessary. Further, I call on the Minister to help all the other Deputies who have tabled private members' legislation.

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