Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Tá muid sásta déileáil leis seo inniu. Without a doubt, we are all very happy to be dealing with this legislation. On some level, I agree with whoever said earlier that we need this to happen as quickly as possible. It should have happened earlier.

We all know why the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up. We have all seen what it has done at State level and locally. There is nobody who does not like to see crime is made to pay, whether that is through the courts or through the civil courts, as the Minister said, and that there is a financial sanction for crime. As I speak about sanctions, I agree that we need legislation and a conversation on dealing with organisations, individuals and persons associated with States or companies that may be profiting from or involved in humans rights abuses. We all understand what is going on today, whether we are talking about the genocide in Israel or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It cannot be okay that certain people can get away scot-free in relation to that. No different from the street dealer or the person who moves the funny money about, we need to ensure there is a sanction.

We all accept that the war on drugs has been lost, in the traditional sense in which it was understood. We need to have a trauma-informed and health-led policy and to ensure we look after those who are suffering from addiction. We need to do everything we can to divert young people who may fall into criminality and deal with disadvantaged communities which feel this most. What did the Irish Examiner say this week? Its headline read "Available, affordable, potent: Ireland is being hit by a 'perfect storm' of cocaine". We all understand cocaine permeates every socioeconomic group but we also know the real harm and drug debt intimidation it brings.

An awful lot of it is focused in working-class areas and in those areas that are impacted the most. We need a real conversation on dealing with this level of crime. We need family supports and diversion pieces. Youth diversion projects like Greentown or the Escapeline operation in England help children who are being groomed or used by criminal entities to be removed from that environment. We need the likes of specialist health nurses who will engage with families. I believe that is planned but we need to see it happen. We need to give supports to families and wider communities that require it. In some cases, we are dealing with the outworkings of poverty.

Deputy Ward spoke of the Bill I was lucky enough to co-sponsor with him, the Proceeds of Crime (Investment in Disadvantaged Communities) (Amendment) Bill. That was us stating, as I think we would all agree, that we needed money to be taken from these people who have their heel on the neck of many in our communities and returned to organisations. There will never be enough money in that. We need to resource everything, including the supports required, addiction services and, beyond that, adequate policing to deal with the bad examples. We can walk into many estates and point out houses of people who, for a considerable period of time, have been making money off the backs of their neighbours, and none of it is good enough. At this stage, it is not just off the backs of their neighbours. It is chasing after grandparents for drug bet money. We accept there is a need for streamlining this. There is support for this but we need a wider discussion on dealing with drug crime and its impact on communities.

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