Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That is one of the initiatives that is intended to tackle organised crime. We would all agree that the Criminal Assets Bureau, in the work it did, was a significant deterrent. Passing this law is an important development but it needs to have sufficient resources to ensure that it is effective.

I note that any garda or customs official will be empowered to seize and detain any cash intended to be used in drug trafficking where there is reasonable grounds to do so, but I also note from the explanatory memorandum that the Bill will not result in any additional direct costs to the Exchequer. However, if additional resources are required, costs may arise and those costs may be recouped in time by the successful application of the law. I would like to hear from the Minister how that is to be addressed if there are no costs involved because if the same resources are being stretched in terms of gardaí and customs personnel, one would have to ask whether the Minister is giving them the power intended.

We often see legislation giving enhanced powers but what is promised fails to meet the expectations because the institutional side has not got it right in terms of lack of resources, people with the right skills or basic equipment. In addition to this measure, it is essential that the causes of crime be tackled. There have been cutbacks in community initiatives, diversion programmes, youth and early education programmes and crisis intervention programmes, which are essential, as is the basic issue of inequality.

While the Social Democrats can understand that this measure represents an urgent response, and we are supportive of that by way of this measure, I would like to see the same attention paid to those who asset strip, tax evade and place their assets in countries like Panama. I often wonder about the systems that are available to transfer from an account what are often very large amounts of money when one considers the checks and balances that apply for the ordinary person. If a large amount of money was regularly moving out of an ordinary person's account, authorities would be notified.

I raise that in the context of this motion because this is the kind of money needed to make sure that the programmes in communities I spoke about remain in place. I do not see it as a separate issue, although it is not associated directly with this measure, but it is the means of preventing what we are seeing happening currently because the Minister has the resources to do that. I would like to see the same attention paid to the prevention of crime, the resources to deal with that, the causes of crime but also white collar crime and where that is impacting by virtue of the fact that there is not an income to which this country has an entitlement to allow us provide services for all our citizens.

See this speech in context