Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies who spoke and for the support they expressed for this Bill. The legislation is substantially supported on both sides of the House by a variety of Members. In particular, I thank Members of the Government parties, Fine Gael and the Labour Party, for their support.

I am still somewhat confused by the contribution made by Deputy Mac Lochlainn of Sinn Féin who seemed to stand out from everyone else in his contribution. I am not entirely sure whether he opposes the Bill or opposes Europol, whether he disagrees only with aspects of this Bill or whether it is aspects of the provisions adopted at European level that relate to Europol with which he disagrees The best I can say is that he believes something should be done about crime but he has a mental reservation as to whether he can support the mechanisms provided in this legislation and the entire supportive framework Europol provides to members states, including this one.

It is no harm to remember the central objective of the Bill in the context of the contribution Europol makes. I refer to the Schedule of the Bill which provides the detail of the Council decision in Article 3: "The objective of Europol shall be to support and strengthen action by the competent authorities of the Member States and their mutual cooperation in preventing and combating organised crime, terrorism and other forms of serious crime affecting two or more Member States."

The Council decision further details in Article 5 the various tasks of Europol, including principal tasks, which in effect are the collecting, storing, processing, analysis and exchange of information and intelligence; notifying the competent authorities of the member states - in our case the Garda Síochána - without delay of information concerning intelligence and about any connections identified between criminal offences; aiding investigations in member states, in particular by forwarding relevant information to the national units - ours again being the Garda Síochána; asking competent authorities in member states to initiate, conduct or co-ordinate investigations and to suggest the setting up of joint investigation teams in specific cases; to provide intelligence and analytical support to member states in connection with major international events; and to prepare threat assessments, strategic analyses and general situation reports relating to objectives, including organised crime threat assessments.

These are all objectives that should be supported by Members of this House, along with the setting up of joint investigation teams in specific cases involving organised crimes that impact on two or more member states. This is an obvious commonsensical measure to which, for some reason, Deputy Mac Lochlainn announced his opposition. This is important legislation. Europol plays a very important role. There is accountability within the provisions relating to Europol with regard to the manner in which it conducts its affairs in the context of its funding and its operations in so far as the European Parliament has given it an expanded role under this Council decision.

I very much welcome the support for the Bill. I listened with interest to various issues, some of a technical nature, that were raised by Deputies and I look forward to addressing those in some detail on Committee Stage. It would not be appropriate to go into some of the details now.

Again, I thank Members of the House for their contributions. Some strayed beyond the Bill before the House but understandably they addressed issues of law enforcement and criminality that are of concern to them as Members in this State. In the context of what was said, I assure Members that the Garda and the work it is doing have the full support of me, as Minister, and of the Government

I know many Deputies will welcome that we found savings of €3 million which has facilitated the purchase of 170 new Garda cars before the end of this year. I assure Members that we anticipate there will be funding next year to purchase more cars.

I will revert on Committee Stage to some of the issues raised.

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