Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy McGrath for bringing this Bill forward. I detailed all its difficulties but it has been the catalyst for a very good debate in this House today. There has been a wide-ranging debate addressing a broad range of problems, not all directly relevant to the Deputy's Bill but certainly relevant to concerns about different types of criminality across the country.

On the last occasion I was in this House dealing with a Private Members' Bill, I stated I wanted to encourage people to bring forward such Bills. There is no question at all of the Government, or of me as Minister for Justice and Equality, automatically voting down Private Members' Bills. I would like to see the system we have put in place to provide for debates such as this on a Friday succeeding by having Bills proceed to Committee Stage, where possible. I am happy to be of assistance in that regard. Unfortunately, however, the Deputy's Bill does not address properly the issues that he is concerned about. It has substantial flaws to the extent that it would practically have to be replaced and amended in every section. They are areas that it does not address.

Without repeating what was said previously, I must state there is currently a regime, under the pawnbrokers legislation, for recording information about items that may be pawned and the identity of those who furnish those items. It stipulates the records that must be maintained. Deputy McGrath's Bill would have provisions applied specifically to pawnbrokers, who comprise one of the issues in this area. This creates problems in the areas about which I talked. I am sure it was not the Deputy's intention to create them. The Bill has an impact upon, but does not deal properly with, legitimate trade that has been conducted by jewellers and antique dealers for decades, and it does not deal with the sorts of circumstances to which Deputy Griffin referred whereby scrap metal was used to raise funds for a local club. The Bill does not deal properly with these issues and there is no point in my pretending it does.

The Bill was published by the Deputy without any prior consultation with my Department. If the Bill had been furnished to us in draft from, I would have been happy to provide some assistance to the Deputy and would have asked my officials to do so.

We are addressing this area. A report I hope to publish in the not-too-distant future will detail some of the information contained in the speech I delivered today and I hope it will set out where we intend to head in addressing the various issues that arise. This requires a type of consultative process, one in which I believe Deputy Mattie McGrath did not engage with some of the areas of business to which I referred. He may have done so but it is unlikely that occurred because, if it had, the legislation brought forward by him would have been framed differently.

Neither does his legislation provide all the necessary assistance to the Garda it requires. Without necessarily focusing on it, there are specific offences, for example, under the 1964 Pawnbrokers Act, which if brought up to date and provided in the context of legislation addressing the broader issues the Deputy seeks to address, would be of help in where we head to. There are difficulties and anomalies with the overall approach taken by the Deputy in the Bill which could cause problems for other retail outlets with which I do not believe he intended to interfere.

The debate has been useful in that issues have been raised that are of direct relevance to this area. For example, one provision in the Deputy's Bill which I would like to give further consideration to is in the context of a photographic recording of jewellery exchanged in cash for gold stores, antique stores or general jewellery stores. A picture could be taken of an item and a record retained rather than retaining an item for 30 days. This is a simple procedure and not as complex as it would have been many years ago.

Another interesting issue raised by some Deputies concerned certain types of outlets or retail operations having CCTV records and introducing a statutory requirement for this record to be retained. However, an issue of concern in this respect is that unnecessary expenses may be imposed on legitimate businesses that have operated for many years. There are issues to be addressed in the context of ensuring matters are properly dealt with.

Using the pawnbroker legislation as an example, if suspicion arises over goods provided to a pawnbrokers because the individual attempting to pawn goods will not provide background information, as required under the legislation; the pawnbroker has suspicions about the origins of the goods; or the pawnbroker received information about stolen goods from the Garda Síochána and these goods matched this description, the pawnbroker is under statutory obligation to make active contact with and engage the Garda. There is a whole range of issues not addressed in Deputy Mattie McGrath's legislation.

Deputy Joan Collins raised an important issue of advances in technology such as Internet trading of jewellery which does not require the existence of any retail outlet. It can all be done on the web by inviting people to post items to a particular address and one does not need a retail shop or outlet of the nature envisaged that we see on some of our main streets. How can one deal with this and ensure records are kept? Should it be made extra territorium because dealing with issues on the web in this context is not confined to people who post notices in Ireland, are based in Ireland and are necessarily trading in Ireland? There are issues here which impact on the discrete area of cash for gold even though the Deputy's Bill has broader application than that.

I have already made mention of the work done in the area of scrap metal. This will also fall under the aegis of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. It will be necessary that he feed into legislation in this area.

Deputy Wall, as well as others, raised the issue of diesel being stolen. The Garda is conscious of this and has had some success in this area. It falls outside the content of this Bill, however. The reality is that for as long as one has human beings intent on dishonesty, there will always be individuals who will have no respect for other people's rights or ownership of property and who will engage in criminality. It does not matter how much legislation we pass in this House, we will not eliminate criminality in its totality. There is adequate legislation in place for dealing with the stealing of diesel. What is needed is that people inform the Garda of events that occur which it will investigate with the professionalism that rests within the force.

It is correct, as mentioned, that prior to the last election some of my colleagues in Fine Gael were bringing forward a Bill to deal with the same issue Deputy Mattie McGrath sought to address today. The area is complex and needs to be dealt with in a manner which works. We do not want a simply decorative Bill which does not give the Garda meaningful new powers. There is a need to maintain reasonable records in this area but it must be done in a manner in which individuals who do not maintain records are guilty of an offence. There is also a need to have a mechanism to ensure the Garda is informed where an individual is alerted to another attempting to sell on stolen goods. We must also ensure such legislation does not waste Garda resources with the force taking on an administrative task which does not assist in front line policing and could better rest elsewhere.

I thank Deputy Mattie McGrath for giving all sides of the House the opportunity to debate this issue today. I assure the House that any new measure required to address the difficulties discussed will be brought forward.

One Deputy cast some doubt on the truthfulness of what I said about the assurance given to me by the Garda that it has visited every cash for gold retail outlet in the State. It might be understandable if some outlet opened in the past several weeks that it has not visited yet. However, I have been assured that in very explicit terms those in charge of these outlets are aware of the legislation concerning receiving stolen goods, to use the old parlance of criminal law, the seriousness of receiving stolen goods and the criminal consequences of that. I am told also the Revenue Commissioners have taken whatever steps necessary to ensure the records of these outlets are properly maintained and taxation matters are properly dealt with and addressed.

I thank Deputies for this constructive debate. I assure Members on all sides of the House that I listened carefully to it. I had to leave the House briefly to deal with a matter but I ensured I had the monitor on in the background and did not miss any major portion of the debate. Having considered today's debate and the issues raised and having factored them into the report we are working on I hope to subsequently publish the report, and then in consultation with colleagues in Government, to bring forward appropriate legislation to address any gap that currently exists in the law in this area.

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