Ireland\u2019s failure to participate in key international initiatives and conventions is making it \u201csignificantly more difficult\u201d to freeze and confiscate criminal assets and incomes, particularly if they cross borders, according to a Government document.<\/p>\n
The National Economic Crime and Corruption Strategy also states that Ireland \u201cmust enhance\u201d its laws on confiscating proceeds of crime in cases involving a criminal conviction.<\/p>\n
The document says the problem in the criminal system contrasts with the civil law process \u2014 as operated by the Criminal Assets Bureau \u2014 which it says has been successful in the \u201caggressive pursuit\u201d of assets linked to organised crime. The strategy, developed by the Advisory Council against Economic Crime and Corruption, also recommends:<\/p>\n
Legislation updating Ireland\u2019s ethics in public life obligations is \u201clong overdue\u201d;
\n Ireland\u2019s current data picture on economic crime and corruption is incomplete, making it difficult to produce accurate assessments and analyse current and emerging threats;
\n Banks or regulators do not share within their sectors information on suspected criminal and fraudulent activity because there is no legal basis to do so, and for fear of breaching data protection rules;
\n Economic crime and corruption cases \u201cstruggle to find sufficient priority\u201d in the courts and dedicated court lists, sittings or a specialist court could help;
\n Ireland should consider introducing \u2018non-trial resolution measures\u2019 or \u2018deferred prosecution agreement\u2019 regimes as a means of corporate compliance and administrative sanctions \u2014 and avoid lengthy and costly court trials.<\/p>\n
The advisory council\u2019s report noted that, according to EU estimates, only 1-2% of estimated criminal profits are confiscated. It said that Ireland\u2019s asset confiscation system is internationally rated to be \u201conly of a moderate level of effectiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report said Ireland did not participate in several key international initiatives on asset confiscation, which \u201ccould significantly\u201d strengthen operations.<\/p>\n
This includes Interpol\u2019s \u2018Silver Notice\u2019 system, Europol\u2019s Project ASSET initiative, the EU Asset Recovery and Confiscation Directive, and a Council of Europe convention.<\/p>\n
The report said: \u201cIreland\u2019s non-participation in these instruments renders it significantly more difficult to freeze, confiscate, and dispose of assets and the proceeds of crime, particularly on a cross-border and transnational basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cormac O\u2019Keeffe, Security Correspondent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s failure to participate in key international initiatives and conventions is making it \u201csignificantly more difficult\u201d to freeze…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59150,54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-624159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-gangland-crime","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}