Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The purpose of the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill 2014 is to strengthen the existing 1996 Act, titled the Proceeds of Crime Act. This amending Bill proposes to reduce from seven to two years the waiting period before the Criminal Assets Bureau can apply to the High Court for the disposal and forfeiture of assets frozen under section 3 of the Act.

Deputies and the public at large will remember June 1996. It is embedded in the public mind because it was the month Veronica Guerin was assassinated. At the time she worked for the Sunday Independentnewspaper and was a distinguished campaigning journalist. Ms Guerin's untimely death and the subsequent public and political outcry led to the enactment of the Proceeds of Crime Act in October 1996 and, subsequently, to the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau.

It is widely acknowledged that this change in the law in 1996 allows the authorities to freeze the assets of those who obtain certain assets from criminal activity. It operates on the basis that those who obtain assets by criminal activity should not benefit from them.

I will set out the current scheme of the Act. Normally, the process starts with the Criminal Assets Bureau applying to the High Court under section 2 of the Act for an interim order to freeze assets without notice to the defendant. The trial of the action then takes place and if the Criminal Assets Bureau is successful an order under section 3 is made. This has the effect of freezing the assets until further order.

However, currently the assets cannot be disposed of or transferred into the Exchequer. This cannot be applied for unless an interlocutory order is in force for at least seven years. There can be no transfer of assets frozen under court order into the Exchequer. There remains a question mark over the ownership of the assets by the criminal involved in whatever activity. The Bill aims to reduce this waiting period from seven to two years. It could bring about a once-off injection of cash into the Exchequer.

See this speech in context