Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I speak on behalf of the Fine Gael party when I express my support for this in its entirety. I thank the Minister of State for bringing it before the House today. Apropos of the points made by Senator Higgins, Ireland is very much aware of the rights of those seeking asylum and operates thoroughly and comprehensively to vindicate to those rights. If further measures are needed to ensure that airlines are operating correctly with regard to the vindication of those rights, then I am sure we will be open to entertaining and considering that, with human rights as the basis for everything.

I have read the explanatory memorandum accompanying the motion and regulations before us today. The backdrop to this is the European Union's Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment, SOCTA. In its foreword, the executive director of Europol, Ms Catherine de Bolle, has stated:

I am concerned by the impact of serious and organised crime on the daily lives of Europeans, the growth of our economy, and the strength and resilience of our state institutions. I am also concerned by the potential of these phenomena to undermine the rule of law.

When one sees crimes such as the cyberattack on the HSE, one realises that, as the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth has said, we are under the threat of cyberattacks all of the time. There is not a village in the State that does not have someone who was trafficked into it. These people are operating various areas, not just in the sex trade, which is one of the traditional areas in which one would expect to come into contact with trafficked people. They are working in areas such as cleaning, construction, gardening and driveway maintenance, as well as in the nail care industry. There are people in every walk of life who have been trafficked into this country. These measures are part of combating that and of ensuring that the tragedy of the human beings who are being smuggled is dealt with in an appropriate manner. The measures give us an opportunity to respond to that.

The sums of money involved here are vast. Some of the communities in my own home constituency of Dublin South Central have the potential to be completely dominated by crime groups. I acknowledge the Minister of State has responded to this well. In this context, we must act as part of the European Union and make a serious intervention, as per the motion before us. This is an encroachment on our privacy rights but it is a rightful and proportionate response because the very existence of nation states is at threat, given the sums of money involved and the control commanded by organised crime. We cannot be naive about what we are up against here. The more we co-operate with others, the better. Little Ireland cannot do this on its own. We need European co-operation. Europe seems to be the regulatory body for the entire world at this point.

It is estimated that 80% of criminal networks are involved in drugs, organised property crime, fraud, human trafficking, online fraud and migrant smuggling. Of those, 65% are composed of members of multiple nationalities. There are 180 nationalities involved and seven out of ten of these networks typically operate in more than three countries. These statistics in themselves are sufficient to argue that all of this is justified, proportionate and necessary. We give it our complete support.