Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support this interesting and innovative amendment by the Minister. It is innovative because it seeks to amend our money laundering legislation to include in its definition of criminal conduct acts of corruption which we have established under this legislation have been carried out by foreign officials. In particular, it seeks to identify criminal conduct as including the criminal offence of active and passive corruption under section 5. Section 6 deals with active and passive trade in influence. It is innovative because it seeks to include those two criminal offences as examples of criminal conduct that can allow the operation of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010.

It is important to recognise that corruption is an international issue. If we look at examples of major international corruption, there are countries where one would start and one is not Ireland. There are countries where one would say that individuals involved in government have been, and are, involved in acts of corruption. The definition of "foreign official" in this legislation includes a member of the government of any other state, a member of a parliament of any other state and a public prosecutor in any other state.

If we are serious about trying to tackle corruption, we need to ensure that we recognise its international context. The benefit of this amendment is that it will mean that the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 will be able to operate in respect of the offences contained in sections 5 and 6. This is far-reaching legislation. Our money laundering and terrorist financing legislation can be used to freeze moneys that happen to end up in Irish bank accounts if it can be established that those moneys are the proceeds of crime committed under sections 5 and 6 of this legislation. That is irrespective of whether or not those crimes are crimes in the country where the foreign official comes from.

I believe it is an innovative proposal in this regard. We will be supporting it and I am interested in seeing how it will work out and the extent to which it will have an impact on deterring corrupt foreign officials from using Ireland as a place where they can source their money.

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