Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

——waiting eagerly for the punchline when I was interrupted by the Leas-Chathaoirleach. To reiterate, the Criminal Justice Bill is important legislation. From an international viewpoint it is necessary and people demand it. Procedures must be put in place for people to feel secure. From the international viewpoint, however, the "Homeland Security" initiative in the United States has a downside for Irish expatriates living in America. We should endeavour to do whatever we can on this side of the Atlantic to help ease the strict procedures that prevent many Irish people who may have been living there for 15 years or more from coming home, whether to a funeral or a wedding.

To return to the domestic scene, I again allude to my part of the world, the north west, where there is much confusion and ambiguity. As I said yesterday, one can travel 20 miles from Letterkenny to Free Derry Corner to be confronted by a mural of the Palestinian flag. If one picks up the Irish News one reads it is possible to get £1,000 sterling in a night club, a bar or in a certain business establishment, if one is prepared to pay £250 sterling. That effectively is money laundering. The Criminal Justice Bill is seeking to counteract money laundering, so how does the legislation deal with it on a cross-Border basis? How are we prepared to work towards eliminating this type of activity?

It is operating on a large scale throughout the North at the moment. So far as I am concerned I will go on the record and say that this is money from the Northern Bank in Belfast. Whatever legislative measures are put in place, there still needs to be close co-operation with the PSNI in Northern Ireland. This legislation cannot work if we do not have direct contact and communication with the PSNI. Many people in Border areas allude to the fact that certain elements of both Nationalist and Unionist communities have come to accept criminality as a way of life on a cross-Border basis and we must examine how this can be counteracted.

As regards the confusion and ambiguity, I mentioned Nell McCafferty's article yesterday. She is a well-known Irish journalist who believes the IRA was not part of the bank robbery in Belfast. I believe that is wrong and that there are so many conflicting opinions and there is so much ambiguity and confusion in Northern Ireland that people do not know where they stand.

I will finish on a note I raised already today on the Order of Business. The onus is on politicians to show the lead on a cross-Border parliamentary basis. We have to do this because this Government allowed the DUP and Sinn Féin to take the lead in the last round of negotiations. They were given an opportunity. History will tell the tale and hindsight has 20-20 vision. They should be given the benefit of the doubt. On this side of the House, my colleague Senator Hayes has never given a certain party in the North the benefit of the doubt in its association with a paramilitary wing. The onus is on us to show the lead. We have to do so because there is no point in letting them carry on in the North. The Six Counties is so much a part of Border life and that of other parts of the Republic. The Six Counties are not an entity any more as there is too much cross-Border business and socialising. The Six Counties are a state of mind as well as a political boundary. We have to up the ante in using this legislation and in working with the PSNI through the Garda Síochána. There is no point in empty rhetoric in order to maintain an electoral mandate for any party. Cross-Border co-operation has to be improved through the cross-Border agencies. The effective measure of this Bill to counteract money laundering will not happen if gardaí do not have communication with their colleagues in the PSNI.