Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

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

Last March I introduced this Bill, Protection of the Environment (Criminal Activity) Bill 2015, to provide for the establishment of a cross-Border statutory agency to investigate and report on fuel smuggling, other illicit trade and criminal activity in counties adjacent to the Border between Northern Ireland and this jurisdiction. The Bill proposes the establishment of a cross-Border multi-agency task force to tackle fuel smuggling. If enacted, the Bill would tackle the scourge of criminality in the Border region. It creates a cross-Border crime agency drawing together police, revenue and environmental agencies to root out fuel laundering, cigarette smuggling and other illicit trade.

This Bill offers a comprehensive and swift method to fulfil the broad outline set out in the document A Fresh Start: The Stormont House Agreement and Implementation Plan. The Government should support this Bill to ensure our obligations under this new agreement are holistically and rapidly met. This will help to generate real and vital momentum behind the agreement. In addition, the legislation includes an integral environmental component to deal with the devastating physical impact of fuel laundering. This is an essential ingredient in the legislation.

Fuel laundering, cigarette smuggling and other illicit trade form part of a broader corrosive wave of criminality in the Border region and, indeed, further afield. Unfortunately, in recent years two members of An Garda Síochána have been killed in County Louth. The murder of the Garda detective Adrian Donohoe has yet to yield any criminal prosecutions due to the wall of silence imposed by criminal gangs in the area.

In addition to the grim social impact, fuel smuggling and green diesel laundering represent a serious environmental threat. The chemicals used to extract green diesel dye generate serious environmental damage that affects both jurisdictions. The material produced as a consequence of removing green dye from diesel is highly toxic and has the potential to damage public drinking water supplies. The fuel laundering industry also spawns broader criminality such as illicit cigarette smuggling and trade in other counterfeit products.

For some years we have been aware of the large volumes of laundered diesel and, in more recent times, stretched petrol that are being traded even further afield than the Border region. The many negative aspects of these activities include a substantial loss of revenue to the State and a similar loss in Northern Ireland. It was estimated some time ago, and it was probably a conservative estimate, that more than €260 million is lost to the State annually as a result of illegal fuel smuggling. We also must consider the genuine grievance of small traders, because their business is being eroded by illicit trade. Individual motorists also incur substantial costs when, in good faith, they purchase a product without knowing it has been contaminated, resulting in high repair costs for engines and other vehicle parts.

On many Border roads we have seen fuel spillages which create hazards for motorists and have caused serious accidents over the years. Local authorities incur substantial expenditure every year cleaning up these spillages, which is a further drain on the scarce resources of county councils. They do not have the money to spend on cleaning up the results of this illegal trade. We must also consider the overall damage to the environment caused by fuel laundering. We have seen in person, or in photographs, cubes of sludge dumped by roadsides and in ditches. This sludge is a by-product of the bleaching agents and sulphuric acid used in laundering diesel. The outcome of this process is that toxic waste is dumped in our countryside, posing serious dangers to our waterways, public drinking water supplies and public health in general. Indeed, this activity threatens the provenance, authenticity and good name, which was established over many decades, of our agricultural production system, a system that is vital not only to the rural economy but also to the overall economy.

This Bill builds upon the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly report which recommended a multi-agency cross-Border task force to tackle this criminality at its root. That important and worthwhile report recommended the imposition of more serious penalties, including lengthier custodial sentences, on the individuals and gangs involved in these criminal activities. A number of weeks ago we received a report from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI, and MI5 on paramilitarism which was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Ms Theresa Villiers, in August 2015 following the murder of Mr. McGuigan in Belfast. That report found that the so-called republican and loyalist paramilitary groups continue to exist across Northern Ireland. It is a source of regret for all of us that those gangsters and criminals are controlling some communities.

The report's findings regarding the IRA were particularly striking, as it agreed with the PSNI investigation that the IRA still exists and was involved in the murder of Mr. McGuigan. The report further found that the IRA is still involved in criminality such as the activities that are eroding law and order in the Border region. This underlines the pressing need to address this criminality through a concerted task force. The efforts to date have not been sufficiently successful, so they must be reinforced. The fuel smuggling industry is inextricably linked to the legacy of the IRA, its structure and its membership. The brutal murder of Paul Quinn in my constituency in 2007, a young man who had every bone in his body broken by a highly organised gang clad in non-traceable suits, is a testament to its continued and unwelcome presence on the ground.

Fuel smuggling in the Border areas has traditionally been inextricably linked to paramilitarism masquerading as republicanism. It was traditionally used as a fund-raiser and more recently led to the so-called diesel mansion phenomenon of prominent people, so-called republicans, cashing in on the illegal trade, building huge houses in the area and living parallel lifestyles.

The parents of Paul Quinn are in no doubt that the IRA killed their son as a show of strength in the area after he fell out with a member of a local so-called republican family. The smear campaign directed against the late Paul Quinn was despicable. It was reprehensible when a Sinn Féin public representative from the area, Mr. Conor Murphy, denounced Paul Quinn as a criminal in an effort to blacken his name. Unfortunately the Quinn family has been met with a wall of silence, as fear and intimidation have prevented any prosecutions for this awful, indescribable murder. Local political activists led intimidation at community meetings. It is just not good enough in the Ireland of today to hear parties appealing for people with information to come forward when those who do come forward do not answer any questions or provide any meaningful information. That is not coming forward in any true sense. This is a grave illustration of the impact of allowing criminality to fester and thrive. It emphasises the obligations we have to grab the bull by the horns and not to turn a blind eye to criminality led by paramilitary organisations of any guise, whether so-called loyalist or republican. These organisations have no place in our society and can have no place in the Ireland of the future.

This Bill proposes the establishment of a cross-Border multi-agency task force to spearhead efforts to rid us of this criminality, from whatever source. It must be rooted out of society. The proposals before this House should form part of the measures to be discussed in the upcoming trilateral meeting in December arising from the recent agreement, A Fresh Start: the Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan. That agreement, which was signed in early November, sets out a cross-Border task force as one of its components in tackling paramilitary criminality. The details are due to be thrashed out in a trilateral ministerial meeting next month between the relevant Ministers, North and South and the British authorities. However, unlike the agreement outline, this Bill includes a strong environmental facet to recognise the physical impact on the landscape and water supply in the Border region. This Bill should form the basis of the Government’s engagement with the trilateral discussions in the coming weeks. It was reported in the print media yesterday that a Government spokesperson stated that this legislation is redundant. It is not redundant, however, because the proposals in A Fresh Start agreement outline do not refer to the environmental aspects of the work we propose the cross-Border body should undertake.

Deputy Phelan is a Minister of State in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government as well as the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and I presume she is here to respond on behalf of the former Department. What is proposed by both Governments and the two main parties in the Executive, Sinn Féin and the DUP, does not contain any reference to the very important environmental work that must be done to address the damage that is being done on a daily basis to our environment, North and South, by ongoing criminal activity. Moving forward quickly is vital to injecting momentum into the agreement or else A Fresh Start will descend into a false start, like the Haass talks and the Stormont House agreement. All of us want to see progress in the implementation of the agreement, A Fresh Start. That includes quick progress on the measures that have been agreed in principle. We also need progress in the areas on which there was no agreement, including the very important issues of dealing with the past and with the concerns, worries and needs of survivors and families of victims.

Again I take the opportunity in this House to welcome the agreed statement of principles in the recent agreement to challenge all paramilitary activity and associated criminal activity and the commitment to disband all paramilitary organisations and their structures. That work needs to be prioritised and progressed and communities throughout the North of Ireland need to see a positive outcome to that work. The illegal fuel and tobacco trade and other illicit trade has been casting an evil shadow across communities along the Border. Many of those involved are not only career criminals, they also have links to paramilitary and dissident groups which threaten to destabilise the society that was secured through decades of political and community engagement. That work was undertaken by very many committed and diligent people from different political backgrounds and traditions. This illicit trade impacts on communities North and South of the Border and acts as a gateway into an underground criminal network. We also need to see tougher penalties, including longer custodial sentences, for people convicted of illegal smuggling or engaging in illegal trade. Greater sanctions must be implemented to make it much more difficult for these criminals to operate. Such illegal trade, associated criminality and the ill-gotten gains therefrom can no longer have any place in Irish society, North and South.

I appeal to the Minister of State to accept this legislation which my party has worked on, in a collective way, for a considerable amount of time in good faith. The Fianna Fáil parliamentary party worked hard on this legislation because we believe it has the potential to put in place mechanisms to deal, without further delay, with this criminal activity. I sincerely hope that it can form an important part of the work that has been committed to in the recent agreement, A Fresh Start. This legislation is not redundant and must be put to work by the Government with the support of all parties in this House.

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