Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is not very funny. I hope to be covered by most Bills, as I am entitled to be in a democracy. I am entitled to act within the legislation and obey it, as I and my colleagues do. It does not behove the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to describe us as terrorists. We see the effects and impacts of terrorism all over the world, especially at present. Financial operations and money laundering for terrorists is a big part of it. No one can operate without money and this is especially true in this murky business of money laundering and terrorism financing. Without money these people cannot buy the equipment required for their activities, including guns and bombs. We must cut it off and stop the flow of money to these people.

The Bill was first published here on 25 April 2018 and proposes to give effect to provisions of the EU's fourth money laundering directive, Directive (EU) 2015/849, which is required to be transposed by 26 June 2017. We are almost in the middle of May and the Minister has just introduced it to the Dáil. Why was there a delay? Does the Minister not get asked questions in this regard at the Council of Ministers? The Government is well able to introduce statutory instruments for many issues and to rush legislation through. We even came back here on special dates before and after Christmas to ensure we had an abortion referendum. It was the most important thing in the world; the sky was going to fall if the 26 May deadline was not met. The Citizens' Assembly and an Oireachtas committee were set up, and this deadline was put in place. The legislation was prepared even before the Oireachtas committee reported, as we now know. Matters such as this, however, can be left until the last possible minute. This has to be passed through these Houses by 26 June, which is little over a month away. The Government is not focused. The Taoiseach and his Ministers are on Grafton Street looking for photo opportunities or are out knocking on doors. The Government is not focused by a long shot on what it should be focused on. It might be well focused on 26 May, when it gets the result of the referendum, le cúnamh Dé.

The EU Commission has commenced enforcement proceedings against Ireland and 16 other member states for failure to transpose the fourth directive. The Bill forms part of a group of measures to combat white-collar crime that was announced by the Government in November 2017. There are commitments in the programme for Government. We are always talking about white-collar crime in our own country and it beggars belief that we cannot show leadership on this issue. We are enacting this because we have been asked; we did not have the instinct to do it ourselves in the first place. Some 16 other member states have also failed in this regard. One must ask what is going on in this regard? During the debate on the future of the EU in the Chamber yesterday evening, a survey was quoted which showed that only 47% of the 500 million citizens had confidence in the EU institutions, that they were fit for purpose and were relevant to the lives of the people and that they were listening to citizens and ag éisteacht le cluasa ar oscailt. The EU institutions are not listening and we saw that after Great Britain, a sovereign country, decided to leave. A vote was held and the result was that it decided to leave. The heads of the EU threatened Great Britain, saying that it was out of kilter, was ruining the team spirit and was not acting like the good boys of Europe. The lectures went on and on and did not achieve anything. It only made the British people and the British Government more determined to leave. Who would blame them? The British are a proud people and are not going to take lectures from the heads of the EU.

There are a number of countries in the EU that are a kind of cabal. They are elected individually but they act as a cabal and dictate what happens in Europe. We have permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, and who knows what else, that we have to suck up or else lie down. The Minister of State at the Department of Defence, Deputy Kehoe, mentioned PESCO and the Lisbon treaty this morning when I asked a question on defence. We had to vote for the Lisbon treaty twice, in fact. That was the start of a slippery slope with bully-boy tactics and a refusal to accept the will of the people. I believe that people want fairness. They want to abide by legislation that is representative and which has goodwill behind it. Police forces will not be able to enforce legislation unless that legislation has the goodwill of the people behind it.

3 o’clock

I am talking about the people of Ireland here. I am talking about the Minister showing leadership, and passing this legislation, introducing it, debating it and taking amendments in a timely fashion. I am supporting it. The Government should not be dragging its feet, and should not have to be dragged before bodies that want to sanction us for not enacting this legislation.

European directives can be used to prosecute farmers for breaking slurry deadlines and so many other things. European directives and their statutory instruments are unbelievable. They are piled on and when it comes to the most serious basic trust in our institutions, reflected in an issue like stopping money laundering for terrorist activities, it should be a no-brainer. We should be clamouring for Europe to enact this, and to have Interpol and the European police forces wholly on top of this game to put a stop to it. White-collar crime is rampant in this country. We know that. I suppose we cannot tell others what to do when our own house is not in order. We need to deal with it swiftly and effectively, and show cause to the people, the electorate that we are here to serve. We are Teachtaí Dáil and public servants.

The fourth directive creates an anti-money laundering, AML, and counter-terrorist financing, CTF, regime that is premised on the identification, assessment and mitigation of risk by member states and obliged entities, that is, persons such as banks, dealers in high-value goods, financial professionals or estate agents. They are a nice group - a pretty wide group - and they control everything. I raised something with the Minister recently, and he accused me of raising something that was not factual. There is a woman who is now on her seventh day without food, who was thrown into jail last Friday by the courts of this country at the behest of banks. She is refusing food. She has two 14 year old daughters and is a widow. That is what we are doing. They have been lined up before the courts. That is the law for little people. The power of our institutions is thrown at her. She is in prison, and I heard nothing from the Minister except that I was making allegations. It is a fact. She is incarcerated improperly, because the governor has no proper documentation to keep her incarcerated. I appeal to the Minister again to have that checked out and assessed. Some people can run rings around us, such as the terrorists and the big bankers, but this poor woman has no defence.

I am told that she is entitled under European law to have a second judge, independent of the first one who found her in contempt. There must be a separate individual justice in order to imprison her. Deputy O'Callaghan might be able to help me out on this. That did not happen. Is that right? That is the way we are treating our own citizens. I am not talking about rights and wrongs. The premises was a family home, and may have been the site of other business as well. The family home should be sacrosanct, and she cannot be wrongly incarcerated for contempt of court because she would not give up her home. That is what happened. European law has dictated it. A Supreme Court case was held some months ago and we are waiting for a decision. This happened while we await that decision. European law clearly states, and it has been tested, that a second judge has to impose the sentencing if one judge finds a person guilty of contempt. The sentence has to be assessed by a different judge. That is European law. We ignore European law when it suits us but when ordinary citizens are involved in any of a wide range of activities, European directives are very punitive and heavy-handed, and must be implemented. Most times, our own officials will add two or three more statutory instruments onto them.

I have mentioned the categories of people designated by the Bill. They include, as I said, bankers, dealers in high-value goods, financial professionals and estate agents. There is a lot of room for supervision there. There should be a public record of all these transactions. We have to keep our public records. I have to keep my public records. All the Members here have to comply with the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, and rightly so. I raised this in the Dáil as well. Amnesty Ireland has received money from abroad, and was found in breach of SIPO regulations and guidelines. I have raised it twice with the Taoiseach, but it does no seem to bother him that this €130,000 should be given back. He is happy to have his Ministers campaign with the head of Amnesty Ireland on this abortion referendum, despite the fact that they are knowingly in breach of State laws concerning financial transactions and reporting. What kind of banana republic are we in? The Taoiseach told me that was okay, that there is no problem with it. The Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, can go for photo-shoots with a law-breaker. We are debating this legislation here, and meanwhile our own Ministers can take to the streets in a desperate effort to get a "Yes" vote with people who are in clear breach of financial regulations.

See this speech in context