Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is incredibly important that this fifth EU anti-money laundering directive is transposed into law. We cannot leave inconsistencies and weaknesses open for criminals because criminality is constantly evolving and we need to ensure that our capacity to fight it also evolves. In the past while, there have been cases of online fraud and new revenue streams for criminals. We must ensure that banks and our legal and policing frameworks are able to deal with this.

The football field rave that we saw recently shows the epidemic level of the drugs scourge, leaving aside the breaches of pandemic restrictions and those difficulties. We must deal with the wanton criminality and drug dealing. This is one of the ultimate cash businesses that still remains. We need to ensure that we have forensic computing and accounting capacity and that all legal loopholes are closed. I have a particular difficulty with the fact that the national drugs strategy falls under a junior Ministry in the Department of Health. To a degree, I think we need a whole-of-Government response to the wider problem of drugs, including addiction services and so on, but also dealing with criminal gangs. That response is vital and we need the teeth and capacity to deal with them.

I am glad when we see actions on the part of the Criminal Assets Bureau because even when that is at a localised level, it has an incredible impact. I want to quickly go through some recent news stories. The Dundalk Democrat, on 18 September, reported:

The Criminal Assets Bureau conducted a search operation in County Louth this morning.

Four residential addresses were searched during the course of the operation conducted by Criminal Assets Bureau personnel assisted by the Emergency Response Unit, the Regional Armed Response Unit, Louth Divisional personnel and the Customs Dog Unit.

During the course of this morning's search, €57,507 was frozen in two bank accounts and €4,770 in cash was seized. 30,000 in cash, believed to be the proceeds of crime, had already been seized as part of this ongoing investigation prior to this morning's search operation.

This type of operation is vital and teaches a lesson to criminals. We need more of it to happen. People were arrested after the seizure of €245,000 worth of cocaine at Dublin Airport. That shows the size of the problem.

We have also talked about money mules. This Monday, the Evening Herald reported:

A young criminal involved in the deadly Drogheda feud is one of 32 people who have been arrested for being so-called money mules.

The detective superintendent who was leading Operation Ransom is reported to have said:

It's an easy crime for gardaí to solve because the mules use their own personal bank accounts.

There's a potential conviction for people under the money laundering and terrorism financing legislation and it carries a huge prison sentence.

The article also states, "Money mules can face a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison." We need to get that message out to people, ensure that all these lessons are learned and that the State has the capacity to deal with all these new problems.

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