Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will also support the quick passage of this legislation through the House. On Committee Stage in the Seanad, we tabled an amendment, which I will come back to in a minute, but it was ruled out of order. We have said previously that we will always support legislation which we feel is progressive and will deal with the issue of organised crime. For this reason, we supported the changes that the Minister brought forward the week before last, I think, regarding section 38 and were happy to do so. As a party, we will also support the changes being brought forward under the amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act, even though I personally have some concerns about that legislation.

I take this opportunity to raise the issue of the proceeds seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau because it is a bugbear of mine. I have always said that there is a need to show communities that the proceeds of crime are being pumped back into organisations in these communities where people have been the victims of these organised criminals who have devastated their communities. Currently, that is not the case; it goes into the central Exchequer and then may trickle back into communities through various Departments that fund local projects. For the sake of transparency, however, we should consider the possibility that those proceeds be allowed to be put directly back into communities, so that one can track what has been seized and what is being pumped back into local communities through funding. That was the aim of the amendment we tabled in the Seanad last week which I know was ruled out of order. I probably will not table an amendment on Committee Stage because it will be ruled out of order again and I do not want to waste anyone's time, considering that this legislation needs to be passed as quickly as possible. I know it is scheduled to come back before the House next Tuesday for a resumption of Second Stage but, with any luck, we may even finish Second Stage today, which would allow Committee Stage to be taken next week.

As part of the wider reforms that the Minister mentioned in her speech, we need to look at that element of the proceeds of crime which are confiscated. Over the past ten years or so, the proceeds have amounted to around €14 million. A sum of €14 million would go a long way to funding some of the front-line community and voluntary organisations which in recent years, because of the economic collapse, have had their funding drastically reduced. If there is an opportunity to try to show them solidarity in their daily fight in their local communities, we should consider that very seriously.

On the Bill itself, I know there were concerns about the lowering of the threshold. It is proposed to move the threshold from the ability of the court to seize assets to the ability of bureau officers to seize them once they are not below the limit of €5,000. They do not even need to see those assets during a search warrant. They can seize them if they see them on public display. There is a balance here between property rights and the constitutionality of the provision. I am glad that the Minister outlined in her speech that not only has the Attorney General considered this but that she has also got senior counsel to consider it. Senior counsel are satisfied, so we are happy with that analysis. That balancing act is needed so that a case is not transferred from civil to criminal. It is important to say that anyone who has his or her assets seized under this legislation is not necessarily guilty of a criminal offence. Only the courts can decide whether somebody is guilty of a criminal offence. There are also safeguards put in, as Deputy O'Callaghan has said, in subsections 1B and 1C of section 3. Subsection 1B allows somebody to make an application to the court to revoke an order which has been made previously after the 21 days. Subsection 1C also allows that individual to receive compensation if an interlocutory order has not been made or has failed when the application has been made to the court, which is also an important provision. As Deputy O'Callaghan said, I hope we do not see any case in which a person has goods seized and then, eventually, when it gets to a court order within that 21-day period, the court decides that the assets were not the proceeds of crime. However, there is always that possibility, so it is important to have those safeguards in the legislation.

It is proposed to lower the threshold to €5,000, which is pretty low. I can see the rationale and the reasoning behind it. I am sure every Deputy in this Chamber represents, as I do, a constituency in which there is huge deprivation in some areas. One of the most frustrating things for law-abiding citizens in those communities is to see the local drug dealer or organised criminal driving around in flashy cars and dripping with gold jewellery. For young people growing up and seeing that, sometimes it can be an incentive for them to get involved in criminality because they see these individuals in their gold chains and driving around in their flashy cars and they aspire to have that type of wealth. Unfortunately, when one is dealing with communities ravaged by deprivation, and there are not many economic opportunities for young people, some individuals will go down that path of criminality. Anything that helps prevent that is to be welcomed. I think this legislation will help to prevent it because now, if a local person is engaged in criminal activity and is driving around in his flashy car, he needs to be put on notice that flashy car will be confiscated from him at the side of the road and will be taken from him for 24 hours, with the possibility that it will be taken for 21 days and a further possibility that it will be confiscated for good. Therefore, the days of local criminals being able to flash their wealth around the place, I hope, will be addressed by this legislation.

The only other area I want to touch on very briefly is that of racial profiling. We do not have racial profiling legislation in this State. I am not saying that this will happen but we have to safeguard against it happening. There have been cases where members of the Roma community and the Traveller community have been racially profiled in the past. I do not want to see a situation where somebody, just because he or she is from a minority community or the Traveller community, is targeted because of his or her ethnicity. I hope that does not happen, and I think it is very unlikely to happen, but we need to safeguard against it in case it does happen. We cannot have a situation where somebody is targeted because he or she may drive around in a nice car or might have a nice trailer and is from a particular ethnic background. I do not know whether the Minister can address that in an amendment or whether it is the case that we have to implement the legislation in a commonsense fashion. I hope that the latter would be the case.

I do not want anybody to be racially profiled under the legislation. It is being proposed for a very particular reason, namely, to target people involved in criminality and who are decimating local communities. For this reason, we support it.

I have not yet made up my mind about the amendment on Committee Stage. I do not see the value in proposing it, given that it will be ruled out of order. In 2003, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, of the Minister's party, brought forward a Bill to allow the proceeds from CAB to be redirected to local drugs task forces. We need to have this conversation as part of the wider reform. If we are asking communities to co-operate with us and to see the value of legislation, which we know will help them, there must be a clear line of sight. There must be a transparent connection between the confiscation of assets from the local drug dealer or organised criminal and the money being put back into the community to help educate people and prevent them from going down the wrong path.

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