Governments set up joint taskforce to tackle Border crime

The Irish and British governments have set up a high-level multiagency taskforce to deal with organised crime and cross-Border criminality and smuggling.

For the first time, a large number of agencies including police forces, revenue services and criminal assets bureaus from both sides of the Border will work alongside each other to clamp down on what has become a dominant political issue in both jurisdictions.

To underscore its importance, a trilateral cross-Border ministerial meeting will take place in early December involving the British government, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

The key political participants will be Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and Northern Ireland Minister of Justice David Ford.

The meeting will agree specific measures to improve co-operation in tackling organised crime and criminality.

Cooperation

The taskforce has already been set up and includes a strategic oversight group – identifying priority areas and targets – and an operations co-ordination group. It will report on its progress to the three responsible ministers on a six-monthly basis.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said there already had been a lot of cooperation between the PSNI and the Garda Síochána.

“That relationship is to be further intensified and expanded to include revenue and criminal assets bureaus North and South. This is a clear desire on the part of the people that the issue of cross-Border crime and all-island crime be tackled in a way that has not taken place in the past,” he said.

“We are working towards a new and deep relationship, the details of which will be announced by Frances Fitzgerald and [Mr Ford] at the earliest convenience.”

The two police services have already operated the joint Cross Border Policing Strategy, while the Cross Border Organised Crime Threat Assessment is regularly updated.

The 2014 assessment, for example, emphasised fuel fraud and tobacco fraud as a “serious concern” for authorities in both jurisdictions.

The high-level taskforce will comprise the Garda Síochána, the PSNI, customs authorities from both jurisdictions, along with the Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK National Crime Agency.

Cross-Border fuel-smuggling has been a major issue for many years. Revenue closed down 35 fuel “laundries” from 2010-2014.

In 2014 alone, there were 1,109 detections of marked fuel oil and two oil laundries were detected resulting in 50,340 litres of oil being seized.

Funding

In 2014, 5,852 seizures of cigarettes were made, resulting in the seizure of 53 million cigarettes with a value of €25.5 million. In addition, 1,014 seizures of tobacco were made, resulting in the seizure of 9,836 kilogrammes of tobacco with a value of €4.2 million.

While Ms Villiers said almost £300 million would be allowed for ending paramilitarism and tackling continuing dissident and organised crime activity, Mr Flanagan would not disclose the extent of extra funding that would be made available by the Government.

The initiative announced yesterday has come after a report by the British-Irish Parliamentary Association called for more serious penalties for illicit trade activities such as smuggling and fuel-laundering.

Lead author of the report Senator Paul Coghlan said at the time: "Illicit cross-Border trade, particularly in fuel and cigarette-smuggling, is a huge issue impacting on the lives of citizens and small businesses on both sides of the Border."