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

I accept that the Government was not responsible for the timeline. We obviously support this absolutely necessary proposal on PNR data. Once more we are dealing with the outworkings of the TCA between Britain and the European Union and the outworkings of what has been a disastrous Brexit. I am hardly the first person to say that on the floor of this Chamber.

Exercising our parliamentary sovereignty is key part of our powers here and surrendering in any area of co-operation, even one like this which we all support, should be something we do reluctantly. A debate like this is still very welcome. I would like to debate this motion in the context of recent developments with the collapse of the so-called European super-cartel.

Many of these matters are subject to ongoing court proceedings and, therefore, we cannot deal with specifics here but myself and my colleagues have argued that criminals are increasingly co-operating on a cross-border and international basis, with a significant level of sophistication we have not seen previously. Law enforcement, accordingly, needs to become just as sophisticated. Whatever tools and powers are necessary in this regard, we will support.

This appears to be very much what is happening now following a number of key arrests across Europe, and the co-operation of officials in the US as well. It seemed one particular group of organisations were thumbing their nose at the law to a degree that they were biting off more than they could chew. That is no longer the case and action has been taken. Like many of these cases, when we are dealing with the issue of drug dealing, a significant part of what needs to be done is to ensure international co-operation in criminal justice matters, and all the sophisticated tools that are necessary. A wider issue needs to be dealt with and many Members are supportive of the citizens' assembly on drugs use and would like that to be in place as quickly as possible.

We need to be mindful, however, of the potential effects of a power vacuum emerging within the market for illicit drugs. We have all seen that wherever an entity, organisation or gang has been taken out of operation, it has been replaced very quickly. As many people who work in addiction services have said previously, they have yet to have an addict come in to talk about the difficulty they have had in being able to obtain cocaine. That is the reality of the world we live in and is why the citizens' assembly is vital. A power vacuum could emerge within that market and we are all aware that there have been a number of shootings this week, which has raised concerns. The fear always is that further violence is on the way. I hope that the Minister for Justice is liaising with the Garda Commissioner on this.

We also need to take time to assess the success of policies targeting organised crime to ensure a new generation does not emerge. In dealing with the issue of organised crime, it is difficult not to deal with the wider issues relating to drug addiction, embedded poverty and all the multi-agency supports that we have failed to put in place in previous times, and that we are paying for now. We have to set the correct framework in train so that we can avoid some of this into the future. There will always be a need to ensure that we have those necessary tools from a criminal justice point of view.

This is especially the case in respect of Britain, given the unique position we are in. The disastrous Tory Brexit must not be allowed to create a scenario where Britain becomes a safe haven for organised crime. Myself and other colleagues have pointed out before that Britain was among the most frequent users of these databases. However, this is just one more consequence the British Government has had to deal with resulting from its absolutely disastrous actions. It is right and proper that co-operation continues ahead of any final status agreement.

The motion amounts to a derogation from certain requirements and a sunset clause will kick in at the end of 2023. True to form, throughout the Brexit process we will have to see if the British Government will have its own arrangements in place by then. I do not believe that anyone would accept to wager a great deal of money on such a bet.

Finally, we need to be mindful of civil liberties concerns. The information contained in these databases is expansive and sensitive. There are a number of issues with the operation of bodies such as Frontex, Europol, and Eurodoc. That is not to say that co-operation is not the right thing to do but it must be ensured that we have correct level of accountability and due diligence because this must be a part of any criminal justice initiative. We support this opt-in but, as I said earlier, this is us dealing with extra homework on the basis of the disastrous Brexit.

For the day that is in it, I will also put on the record that as much as we have had better mood music with Rishi Sunak in place, we have not exactly seen the sort of movement we would like to see in the sorting out of the wider issue of the Irish protocol. The British Government is still threatening on some level with the protocol Bill, the Nationality and Borders Act and the disastrous amnesty legislation, which is very much about Britain not having to deal with any questions in respect of its role in the North and, basically, its dirty war in Ireland.

All of us support any streamlining that is required in respect of the protocol. Everybody wants sensible solutions. The European Commission, and Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, have bent over backwards. I have no doubt that that will be done into the future. Hopefully, the British Government will be in a place where it wants to do a deal.

We may have a change in respect of the Taoiseach's office in the near future, but I would also like to think that we will have a change in the very near future in the moves we need to take. Whether people think this is a good idea, the constitutional question is out in the open at this point in time. We are 100 years on from a lost opportunity. We are all remembering events that happened during a disastrous Civil War. Liam, Ruairí, Dick and Joe were executed 100 years ago today. There was a great amount of hurt and pain and a failure across what had been the leadership of the republican movement. We now have an opportunity to build something better and to build a new Ireland. First, we need to ensure that the Irish protocol is bedded down. Second, we also need to ensure that the DUP is left in no doubt that there is only one road in play, which is to deliver an Executive, get a working Assembly up and running and to deal with the politics of the cost-of-living crisis and the many other crises that we are also dealing with here. The Government needs to establish a citizens' assembly or some sort of forum, which can be as expansive as necessary, so that we can have the conversations as to what this new Ireland will look like. That is a vital piece of work that needs to be done.

I call it a citizens' assembly but I have no major difficulty if we expand the shared island dialogue into something that it is not at the minute to deal with those particular issues and, beyond that, do all of those necessary preparatory pieces in planning for Irish unity so that we do not have a disastrous Brexit-type referendum.

I may have gone off on a tangent, but I believe the Minister of State may not disagree with everything I have said, and that he might be quite agreeable with quite a lot of it. Hopefully, we will see those changes in the near future.

We support the motion but, unfortunately, we are dealing with just one of the many outworkings of what has been a disastrous Brexit.

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