Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Ó Murchú.

We welcome this legislation. Its introduction is timely, given it will transpose into Irish law an EU directive that has been around for some time. The EU in 2020 initiated infringement proceedings regarding the delay and it is unfortunate that we again find ourselves in this position. Another item of legislation from the EU has been around for a long time and it is only when the European Commission presses hard and takes infringement proceedings against the Government that it moves forward, and that is regrettable.

Nevertheless, we all recognise we live in a very interdependent world, and certainly an interdependent European Union, in which we have to try to work together. The free movement across borders, in particular, means there has to be a system in place whereby people who have acted criminally in any jurisdiction can be held to account. That is important. The Minister of State referred to the serious types of offences many of these people are involved in, relating to human trafficking, rape and sexual abuse, violence and even murder. All those crimes are very serious and we have to ensure they are dealt with appropriately in the states in which they have occurred.

Ireland is now the last country in the EU that works under the common law system. Since Britain left the European Union, we are the only ones who have that type of adversarial system, whereas all the other countries work under another type of system. That causes difficulties and problems and we need to acknowledge that and consider it when we examine these types of legislation. I have come across many incidents, some of which members of An Garda Síochána have spoken to me about, where persons have been the subject of European arrest warrants and the arrest warrants have sat on the shelf for years before anyone knew they existed. Sometimes it is only when a person falls foul of the law here that it is discovered a European arrest warrant has issued and has been sitting on the shelf for a long time. There are issues relating to the efficiency within this State in regard to ensuring those warrants are served properly and so on.

The Minister of State mentioned that under section 8, a person subject to an arrest warrant can be heard by a court in this State on the basis a request has been made by the issuing state. There was an example a number of years ago of a person who was subject to a European arrest warrant from Poland. The offence was a minor one and the person had been sentenced to less than six months in prison. The person had moved here and lived here a long time, had married and settled, had a family, a job and a life and was getting on with it and all of a sudden this came up against them. It was something from their past that had no relation to the life they were then living. Even the judge in the court at the time expressed his regret that he had no option but to send the person back to Poland to serve this minor sentence for a minor offence in the country they had come from. We will table amendments such that either a person in those circumstances could serve the sentence here or there could be some alternative method of dealing with such people where it is clearly a minor offence that has happened in the distant past, and where the person has clearly moved away from any criminal behaviour since then and has been a good and exemplary citizen in this State. There needs to be a way of examining that and recognising the circumstances.

Another issue that has been mentioned relates to the timelines for processing arrest warrants. We have to understand this can be a difficult issue. The system that exists in many European countries is such that the court not only decides the fate of the person but also acts as the investigator of the crime, which is entirely different from the process we have here. I might be going off on a tangent, but I sometimes think an element of that could be useful in this jurisdiction. There have been many various tribunals and incidents where, in respect of the investigative processes used by An Garda Síochána, there were difficulties with the outcomes and where we now have problems with that. I often wonder whether there should be some kind of a judicial overview of that or some person independent of An Garda Síochána, who could ensure everything had been done correctly and followed through on. Certainly in regard to serious cases, that idea has merit and is something we should think about. While there would be an additional cost at the outset to put that type of system in place, and having some kind of judicial overview would cost the State more money initially, it would no doubt relieve the current situation whereby there are so many miscarriages of justice and so many other problems that come back to bite us in the long run because the State ends up paying compensation to people who have been badly treated by the State in that context. There are issues we need to consider in that regard.

We spoke earlier about the people coming from Ukraine, and a motion was tabled by the Social Democrats in respect of requests by some very unscrupulous individuals to seek sex in exchange for providing accommodation. The issue of human trafficking and the horrible instances thereof constitute an international organised criminal enterprise and we need to have a firm way of dealing with it. I mentioned earlier the people in University College Dublin who are carrying out research on the issue. They have told me that many of the women who are involved in this so-called sex trade move around to different countries. They might spend two or three weeks in Ireland, one week in Paris, another week in Amsterdam, a further week in Rome or some other city in Europe, and then they will be allowed to return to their home country, which is usually in eastern Europe, to spend a couple of weeks' holiday with their family and to bring back money with them, before they go back onto the same route once again. That demonstrated to me that very serious international crime gangs are involved in that type of activity. We need to find an effective way of dealing with that. I am not sure whether Ireland has the strongest legislation for dealing with that; perhaps other jurisdictions do. If certain jurisdictions have better legislation or better means of dealing with it, we need to work co-operatively with them to ensure we can bring that type of activity to an end.

European arrest warrants are just one element of all this. While we want the legislation to be progressed speedily and we want to ensure it will be done properly, with no loopholes or other ways in which people can get around it, we also need to have a system that is fair. Some jurisdictions can have quite unusual results following criminal investigations, whereby people may receive serious sentences for what we would consider to be minor offences, and we need to be conscious of that in a judicial context.

In general, this legislation, while long overdue, is welcome. I encourage the Minister of State to progress it as quickly as possible. We will consider some amendments and he indicated that some may be tabled by the Government too. That is all part of the process we need to go through to ensure we will develop strong and effective legislation to deal with international criminal gangs and to ensure it will deliver for the public and the greater good.

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