Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important motion and to commend it to the House. I thank the Minister of State for her introductory remarks and the work that is being done by her and her ministerial colleagues in the Department of Justice on this vitally important area. As has been alluded to by other speakers, despite the assertions of some politicians, Brexit is very much not done. We are going to be constantly seeing over the next decade, and possibly for an entire generation, little bits and pieces of how things were done previously having to be updated to recognise the fact that the United Kingdom, sadly, has made the decision to leave the European Union. It comes with great consequences in every aspect of life, particularly for those of us on this island, but this particular motion and the decision of the European Council show the importance it has in terms of our crime prevention, crime detection and the protection of our society. Crime does not know any borders. It certainly does not recognise the border on this island, let alone anywhere across the European Union.

In recent years, we have seen countless examples, be it in dealing with the most violent and vicious organised crime gangs or dissident terrorists, of the vital co-operation between An Garda Síochána, the PSNI and police authorities across the UK and the Europe Union. Those efforts have seen people brought to justice and convicted. There are people currently serving lengthy sentences in prisons in Portlaoise, England and across the Continent for crimes that were committed in this jurisdiction and in the European Union and that had serious impact on every single person in the Union. It is very disappointing that we have lost the UK's involvement in European arrest warrants, a process which saw 11,000 criminals extradited from the UK to the rest of the EU between 2000 and 2019. That is why it is important this motion is accepted by the House, that we send out a message to the rest of our European partners and that we provide the resources to State agencies and An Garda Síochána to maintain that level of co-operation. We talk about cracking encrypted telephone networks and the vital need for increased funding for the ICT systems of An Garda Síochána. This all has to be done on an EU-wide basis and with the greatest levels of co-operation with partners in the United Kingdom.

In the context of the rising threat of dissident terrorism in this State, there have been a number of arrests in recent days relating to a violent dissident terrorist group based across our island. We have seen significant work done by An Garda Síochána with the PSNI to breakdown the army council of the New IRA over the past 12 months. This is all excellent work but it needs a continued level of co-operation. In the context of this motion and the work achieved at European level in sharing vital data - fingerprints, palm prints and vehicle licence plates - there is an opportunity for Ireland to take a leading role within the EU. How can this be extended beyond the sphere of the EU? What agreements can the EU enter into with other jurisdictions across the world, such as the United States or the United Arab Emirates, where a number of known Irish criminals are languishing, on the run and hiding out from the justice they must face in this State?

I encourage the Minister of State, while ensuring that the motion before the House goes through in the appropriate and timely manner, to be expansive and perhaps look at the wider options in this field that can be taken by the State, with its European partners and those around the globe, in order to make the citizens of this country safer and to bring the criminals who prey on the vulnerable here to absolute justice.

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