Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My party is broadly in favour of this legislation and we are happy to vote in favour of it to allow it to proceed to Committee Stage. I welcome the fact that, in drafting the legislation, the Minister has sought to strike a balance between giving CAB the practical powers it needs to combat criminality and the rights of innocent persons who have the capacity to prove their assets were obtained by legal means. However, our support for the Bill and the overall approach to CAB is not unqualified and a range of matters must be dealt with before the Bill concludes its passage through the Houses. It is essential that moneys seized by CAB can be put back into the communities worst affected by drugs and organised crime. There is no bar to this happening and we will table amendments to this effect. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd tabled legislation designed to do exactly that in 2003 and I urge Fine Gael, in particular, to reintroduce and update the Bill or incorporate the intent of the Bill in this legislation.

Approximately €14 million was seized solely under proceeds of crime legislation between 2006 and 2010. We have asked the Government on numerous occasions to retain this money for community development purposes and to give it to organisations in the communities worst affected by these criminals. They are at the front line trying to help, protect and support them through all of this. This is separate from the money seized by CAB in respect of Revenue and social welfare fraud. The money is taken from drug dealers and criminals who are profiting from the communities they are decimating. It is not good enough that the Government sees fit to use CAB as a vehicle to raise revenue while continually reducing funding allocated to the communities that are victims of crime and, at some point, I hope it takes this on board. It is important that if the revenue raised by CAB is allocated to community organisations, particularly in inner city communities worst affected by criminality, it is not a replacement for existing funding and, therefore, it is additional funding.

Sinn Féin's view is this money should be set aside for these communities, for example, to be used as a funding mechanism for the local drugs task forces' short to medium-term projects. The Government has cut community funding in general and the current legislation allows for all moneys collected by CAB to be returned to the Exchequer in accordance with the provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Acts 1996 and 2005. The funds are then paid into the Government's Central Fund from which it draws for expenditure. If the Government had the political will to fund these much-needed community organisations, it could easily do so by amending these Acts. We call on the Government to introduce this mechanism to fund local drugs task forces and community groups.

We have concerns regarding the absence of safeguards and while cognisant of the High Court decisions in respect of the Proceeds of Crime Acts in the past, we wonder if the reduction in the threshold of proof has dropped so low as to raise issues about its constitutionality. Perhaps the Minister will comment on this when she replies. We will raise this again on a later Stage.