Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

I join the Minister in commending the work of CAB over the years in seizing assets from organised crime gangs. I also join in his comments concerning An Garda Síochána taking drugs off our streets, which is very much needed. Sinn Féin supports the aims of this Bill, but as the Minister mentioned, there will be a Committee Stage and we may seek to table amendments to further strengthen it then. I will speak to some of these in my contribution.

Reducing the time taken between the seizure and disposal of criminal assets is a good thing. It is a no-brainer. A reduction from seven years to two years in the time between an order being made that assets are the proceeds of crime and a final disposal order being available in respect of those assets should probably have been done a long time ago. We have seen how criminals have tied up the legal system in knots as CAB tries to take back assets, assets that are ill gotten and the proceeds of crime. As the Minister said, it is important that these assets be returned to communities.

I welcome that it will be made easier to seize funds associated with criminal activity. We should aim as a State to make it as difficult as possible for organised crime gangs to operate, not only within our communities, but also at the level of business. The practice of criminals investing in legitimate business to wash their dirty money is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been going on since time began. We cannot be soft on white-collar crime or dodgy business owners who facilitate it. White-collar criminals should not be allowed to operate under a shroud of acceptability. There is a direct connection between the visible crimes we see daily and criminals laundering money. The proceeds that come from street muggings, car break-ins, burglaries and other daily occurrences on our streets are filtered through these fronts. Just because these white-collar criminals do not have dirt under their fingernails does not mean their hands are clean. CAB should have the powers to tackle international and cybercrime. Money laundering, cybercrime, counterfeiting and fraud are the tools used by these white-collar criminals. Mixing with the so-called upper echelons of society and displaying the trappings of their ill-gotten gains through fancy homes, cars and golf club memberships give these white-collar criminals an air of respectability, one they do not deserve. They walk around in their flash suits looking down on people in tracksuits. The dirty money gets moved from one place to another and comes up clean on the other side, so we need to give CAB and An Garda Síochána the powers to stop this happening.

The pre-legislative scrutiny report from the justice committee recommended that an examination take place regarding the current criteria and eligibility for potential projects under the community safety innovation fund. Sinn Féin has long advocated for the reinvestment of the proceeds of crime back into the communities most affected by crimes. In fact, my party colleague Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh first raised this issue over 15 years ago. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú and I introduced the Proceeds of Crime (Investment in Disadvantaged Communities) (Amendment) Bill 2021. This would have seen the proceeds of crime reinvested into communities to build resilience through our drug task forces, family resource centres, youth diversion projects, unemployment services, sports clubs and anybody involved in working in a disadvantaged area. In response to this, the Government, in fairness, established the community safety fund, to which local groups can make applications for grants. However, this application process can be arduous and the most impacted communities do not always receive approval for funding. The fund has risen from €2 million in 2022 to €4 million this year. Grants range from €20,000 to €150,000, depending on the project. We welcome the increase in this funding, but we must see the money directed to the communities most in need of it. We believe that funding allocations should be linked to the Pobal index. According to that index, parts of my community are extremely disadvantaged or very disadvantaged. I will give the Minister an example. In 2022, there were 22 successful applications for the community safety fund. Six organisations applied from the parts of my area that were highly disadvantaged and very disadvantaged, but not one of them was successful. This tells me that not all the money allocated to this fund is going to the areas most affected by crime, and this is something I want to see change.

Sinn Féin would also like to see the establishment of a mini-CAB that would target low-level criminals. A mini-Criminal Assets Bureau should be established in the areas worst affected by low- to mid-level criminals, particularly those in the drug trade. Drug debt intimidation of families is rife in working class areas. I have been calling for a local mini-CAB to take the local so-called big boys out of circulation. While they may be the big fish in a small pond locally, they are small fry overall. These low-level players may not be asset-rich, but they have lifestyles that are rich. They have the expensive clothes, the foreign holidays and the trips to the sporting events. Their lifestyles simply do not match their means and it is all played out on social media for the world to see. A mini-CAB would target these lifestyle-rich criminals. It would seek to break the attractive lifestyle of criminals that is often used to coerce young people into criminal activity. The young people in my area do not see the leaders of organised crime daily, as those individuals are far removed from the daily grind of on-street drug dealing. They do, however, see the local players and their lifestyles and this is what attracts young people into criminality. We need to support the most disadvantaged areas in building resilience to crime. These low-level players are often the drivers of drug debt intimidation. I have met parents in my area who have been forced to pay drug-related debts their children have accumulated. The debts that the children apparently owe these unscrupulous dealers are frequently exaggerated to the parents, who then end up paying exorbitant amounts back to these dealers for fear of reprisals. The money the mother borrowed from the credit union to pay the drug debt of her child flows from the low-level drug dealer right up to the upper echelons of the organised crime gangs.

Young people engaged in criminality should face the appropriate justice. In the case of minor offences, though, they should be diverted as much as possible away from the judicial system. I stress that this should be in the case of minor offences. Youth diversion projects and programmes need to meet the hard-to-reach young people, those most at risk of getting involved in crime, including those not involved in school, youth clubs and other community groups. These are the young people who have fallen through the cracks of society. Youth diversion projects should be agile enough to meet them on the streets where the criminality and antisocial behaviour is taking place. Targeted outreach should be used to persuade and help those young people to make better choices and lead them away from a life of crime.

The Minister went out and met representatives of Solas himself recently, which is welcome. If this kind of organisation were to be expanded to other areas of Dublin and right across the State, it would be a really welcome initiative. These young people are the ones I was talking about earlier who are being targeted by older, experienced drug dealers to sell and deliver drugs. Children are being groomed by unscrupulous drug dealers. This is child abuse. The children are attracted by the flashy cars and the new runners, having a few quid in their pockets and the status of being a so-called somebody. These criminals are actually nobodies. They suck the lifeblood out of our communities and return very little. They return nothing but devastation. We need to be proactive rather than reactive and target these young people with appropriate diversionary services before they end up in the hands of the drug dealers.

The Government also needs to be careful of who it does business with and ensure that Government funds are not ending up in the pockets of organised criminals. Reports over the weekend said that the Government had paid millions of euro for IPAS accommodation to a company owned by a man currently awaiting sentencing for violent disorder. This was a man named by the Criminal Assets Bureau as being linked to the Drogheda gang feud. These reports were deeply worrying.

This must be a wake-up call for the Government and shows the need for a full investigation into the granting of contracts and profiteering in the provision of IPAS accommodation. It goes to show the level of money involved in providing IPAS accommodation if people named by CAB are getting involved.

I suggest that the money seized by CAB is only the tip of the iceberg. There is so much dirty money still in the hands of criminals. In Ireland, the value of criminal markets is calculated at €1.7 billion per annum, which is slightly higher than 1% of GDP. The Minister mentioned that CAB had seized €220 million since its inception. That is really welcome, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. The Government Bill is a step in the right direction to help seize assets but it is obvious that more needs to be done.

I reiterate my point that any money seized by CAB be returned to the areas that it originated from. Extremely disadvantaged areas need this support to stop the next generation of young people becoming involved in a life of crime.

Recommendation 15 of the justice committee report states: "The Committee recommends further examination of the use of funds recovered from proceeds of crime and how such funds could be invested ... through the provision of preventative supports within communities". This is an area that the Government must prioritise in any changes to the legislation on CAB.

See this speech in context