Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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557. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will consider establishing a Criminal Assets Bureau unit in each of the divisions of An Garda Síochána; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21308/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Criminal Assets Bureau has been at the forefront of the fight against organised crime in this jurisdiction since its inception in 1996. The manner in which the Bureau operates has come to be viewed, both domestically and internationally, as a very successful model for targeting persons who seek to derive personal gain from criminal activities. The Deputy will appreciate that the operation of the Bureau itself requires a high degree of specialist staff for its functioning, while the Bureau's operational success across the jurisdiction is linked to the information made available to it from local level. To support work at local level the Bureau in 2004 established the Divisional Criminal Assets Profiler Programme and has since then utilised the services of trained Criminal Asset Profilers throughout the country.

There are currently a total of 172 Garda Divisional Criminal Asset Profilers located across the jurisdiction, together with 19 trained officers of the Revenue Commissioners and 3 trained Department of Social Protection officers. The role of the Criminal Asset Profilers is to liaise with, and assist the Bureau, in targeting criminal assets located in their local area. Given the successes of the Bureau and its well developed links with each Garda Division through the operation of the Divisional Criminal Asset Profilers Programme, I can inform the Deputy that there are no proposals to replicate the Bureau structures throughout the jurisdiction.