Agency required to deal with Border crime, says FF foreign affairs spokesman

Fianna Fáil foreign affairs spokesman Brendan Smith has called for the setting up of a cross-Border statutory agency to fight smuggling and other criminal activity.

Mr Smith told the Dáil fuel-laundering, cigarette smuggling and other illicit trade formed part of a corrosive wave of criminality in the Border region and farther afield. In recent years, two gardaí had been killed in Louth, he said, adding the murder of Garda Det Adrian Donohue had yet to yield any criminal prosecutions due to the wall of silence imposed by criminal gangs in the area.

“In addition to the grim social impact, fuel-smuggling and green diesel-laundering represent a serious environmental threat,’’ Mr Smith added.

Mr Smith moved a Private Members’ Bill which, he said, would provide for the setting up of the agency. He said if the Protection of the Environment (Criminal Activity) Bill 2015 was enacted, it would tackle the “scourge of criminality’’ in the Border region.

“It creates a cross-Border crime agency drawing together police, revenue and environmental agencies to root out fuel-laundering, cigarette smuggling and other illicit trade,’’ he added.

Mr Smith said the Bill was built on the work of the British-Irish parliamentary assembly report recommending a multiagency task force to tackle criminality.

Minister of State Ann Phelan said while the Government was not in a position to accept the Bill, she could assure Mr Smith his proposals were being taken into account. Ms Phelan said searches were regularly undertaken by gardaí, at the behest of the Revenue Customs Service.