Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 87: To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of money lost to the Exchequer each year due to money laundering; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23689/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The definition of money laundering in the Criminal Justice Acts is very wide. It includes possessing or using the proceeds of any crime, including tax evasion, as well as any attempt to conceal, disguise, transfer or convert those proceeds. Given this wide definition, the Deputy will appreciate that it is difficult to arrive at any meaningful estimate of the exchequer loss due to money laundering.

The Deputy may be aware that the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 has recently been signed into law. Its provisions will be commenced shortly by the Minister for Justice and Law Reform. Existing anti-money laundering provisions, which are largely contained in the Criminal Justice Act 1994, impose obligations on financial institutions and on lawyers, accountants, auctioneers and certain other categories to identify their clients and report suspicious transactions to the Garda Síochána and to the Revenue Commissioners.

The new Act strengthens the existing anti-money laundering legislation by, among other requirements, widening the offence of money laundering, establishing a system of compliance monitoring by competent authorities, requiring designated persons to identify the beneficial ownership of unlisted companies and trusts and introducing the concept of a risked based approach which will enable designated persons to concentrate resources on higher risk areas. The new legislation will also strengthen the powers of the Financial Regulator by allowing him to impose administrative sanctions for breaches of its provisions. The Financial Regulator is also devoting substantial additional resources to the inspection of credit and financial institutions to ensure compliance with their anti-money laundering obligations.

Further anti-money laundering provisions are contained in certain EU Regulations which have direct effect in all member States. The relevant EU Regulations require full identification of persons transmitting funds by wire transfer (EC Regulation 1781/2006) and require declaration of large cross-border cash movements (EC Regulation 1889/2005).