Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak on the Bill. With one or two caveats, my party and I strongly support the Bill and will vote for it. We agree with the proposal to reduce the threshold value of property subject to removal from €13,000 to €5,000. We also agree with the new short-term administrative power of seizure and detention at CAB officer level envisaged. We have all had discussions with local communities on the matter and the strongest demand or requirement from the community groups we met was that there be a "mini CAB" to address the frustration and almost provocation of seeing people, as Deputy Jonathan O'Brien said, parading around with no visible means but dripping with material goods.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 1996 was the initiative of the rainbow Government, of which I was privileged to be a member. It was probably brought about, more than anything, in response to the brutal murder of Veronica Guerin. The Act and its sister Act, the Criminal Assets Bureau Act, brought in by former Deputy Ruairí Quinn, has been heavily litigated in the courts and has survived robust challenges during the intervening 20 years. The system of civil restraint and forfeiture of assets which we introduced back then has been adopted in other jurisdictions, as the Tánaiste said. It has proven to be a genuinely effective weapon in our response, which we always must be thinking of improving, to the threat of organised crime.

The vital aspect of CAB is that a conviction for an offence is not a precondition for a confiscation order. This was the new departure which was embarked upon 20 years ago. CAB uses purely civil procedure. A former legal officer of CAB put it well when he said its fundamental purpose is "disruption and discouragement", rather than enforcement in a criminal law way. The current proposal to reduce the threshold value of property is a direct response to the calls which many of us have heard to address the new phenomenon that is so evident in some communities across the country and I welcome it.

The Bill comes to us from the Seanad. My colleague in the Seanad had sought to make amendments there, as the Tánaiste knows. As other Deputies have touched on, one amendment proposed was the dedication of the proceeds of crime seized by CAB to investment in areas of social or economic deprivation. If I were still speaking from the Government benches, I would be strongly briefed by my former Department officials to oppose such a motion.

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