I should like to thank the House for giving me permission to raise this matter this evening. It would be wrong if the Dáil, the national Parliament, could not discuss the very serious implications that arise from the "Today Tonight" programme which most of the nation watched in horror last evening. At the outset I should like to congratulate the "Today Tonight" team for their courage in going ahead and showing that programme and for their courage in standing up to those who sought to intimidate them. They have done the nation a great service. Legal changes here generally come about because pressure groups of one kind or another lobby hard in a vociferous way in order to bring about reform. If we had a lobby group to bring about reform of the whole area of criminal law I have no doubt that many of the people we watched on that programme last night would not be walking free in this city but would be in our prisons, where they should be.
As a Deputy who represents one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country I have to say that I am angry and frustrated at the kind of image that came across on that programme last night. Perhaps, for many who take the view that everybody on social welfare is either lazy or defrauding the State or does not really care where the money comes from, last night's programme may reinforce in their minds that awful attitude. It has been my experience that although there is some abuse of the social welfare system the vast majority of the 700,000 recipients are honest and decent people who turn to social welfare only as a last resort in order to survive. It is a disgrace that our laws are in such a state that we do not seem to be capable of means-testing in an effective way people like Martin Cahill and his friends. I have with me the Guide to Social Welfare Services, recently published by the Department of Social Welfare. Last night we saw that Mr. Cahill and some of the others on the programme are on unemployment assistance, £65 for himself and his wife, £27.10 for his three children — under the budget he will get an extra £6.70 — and he has a £5 fuel voucher. I assume he has a medical card because if that is his means he qualifies for one. He has a low rent on his corporation house in Swan Grove but yet he can have three cars — I wonder if they are insured and taxed; that did not come across last night — and a luxurious house in Cowper Downs and many other things.
Is it any wonder that so many people are losing respect for our legal and judicial system when they watch an individual like him? They must ask: "What kinds of law do we have? Why is our criminal law so archaic, and relevant only to the last century, that it cannot deal effectively with such people?". The booklet produced by the Department of Social Welfare states that in order to qualify for unemployment assistance a person must have a qualification certificate which shows that person's means. It states that as the investigation of one's means could delay payment a person should apply for a qualification certificate in good time. The criteria for qualifying for a certificate are outlined in that guide. The following are taken into account: the applicant's cash income; the value of any property the applicant has, but not the applicant's own home; the value of any investments and capital the applicant may have and, in the case of unemployment assistance or single women's allowance, the value of other benefits. It appears that the individual I referred to has two houses. The Swan Grove house is the house from which he applies for his social welfare assistance and, therefore, that house is not taken into account. However, the other house must be taken into account.
I should like to ask the Minister not just to give us an assurance, as I understand he has already announced, that he will investigate the matter but to stop now payments to this individual because he does not qualify under the criteria laid down in the Department's booklet. Those payments should be stopped from today. I want that individual prosecuted under the Social Welfare Acts for defrauding the system because he has announced himself that he was working for a private detective agency. In addition, I want the Minister, as I have done, to get in touch with the housing department of Dublin Corporation and ask why that man — indeed, Mr. Dunne who is serving a sentence had a corporation house in Dolphin's Barn and a person suspected of the £1¼ million robbery of a security van at Fairview has a corporation house — can qualify for a local authority house.
If our housing Acts allow us to house people on the basis of compassionate grounds, even if they do not otherwise qualify, then those Acts must be changed to allow us to de-house people if there are exceptional security grounds. I suggest that Mr. Cahill and his friends use their local authority houses as a base to organise their crimes. The people they get to do their dirty work for them can be sought from and trained in those local authority houses. I want the corporation to investigate this matter. If they do not have power under existing housing legislation, which they may not have, that legislation should be changed so that those people do not continue to qualify for housing, at great cost to the Exchequer, and at a time when so many people are homeless. Next week in the House we will seek to have a Bill dealing with homeless persons printed — these genuine homeless must be our priority.
We should look at a number of other matters. If such people come before our courts they will be asked if they are unemployed and when they answer "yes" they will be given free criminal legal aid. Larry Dunne has already had free criminal legal aid. Time and again our gardaí give evidence of people having substantial sums of money in bank accounts, the proceeds of crime, but yet those people get free criminal legal aid. That is a disgrace. On many occasions that legal aid can cost up to £20,000. There is no effective and proper means testing of applicants for the free criminal legal aid scheme.
In the House last night one of my colleagues raised a question about the Coolock Law Centre and he was told that as there are serious financial problems in this country the Government could not allocate any more resources to that centre. If an ordinary person on a low income goes to any law centre his or her means are properly assessed before they are given legal aid. That strict test should also apply to people who are before the courts on criminal charges. We should ensure that it does not pay for people to get involved in crime. If crime pays there will be many people only too willing to get involved in it.
We have a rate of house burglary 1.7 times higher than that of the UK. In 1986, the last year for which figures are available, £44.8 million worth of property was stolen and only 8 per cent was recovered. The reason more of that property was not recovered was our archaic laws. Earlier this week the Law Reform Commission in their excellent report, much of which I support, made suggestions for reform in this area. At the moment in order to get a conviction against a person for having received stolen property it is necessary to prove that, at the time they received it, they knew the goods were stolen. It is virtually impossible to prove that and, as a result, very few prosecutions are brought before the courts.
I want the law changed so that the onus of proof is switched to the accused. If a person is reckless or careless as to whether or not property was stolen such a person should account for how they came upon that property. Those people should have to show that they got the property legally and, if not, they should be convicted and made serve a long sentence. When people are convicted of having been involved in serious crime like drug pushing, armed robberies and so on, it should be possible for the Garda to apply to the courts and get a criminal bankruptcy order against those people, have their assets seized and have the proceeds of their crime given to worthwhile people like the victims of crime or to other causes.
I understand that Mr. Cahill was before the Dublin District Court this afternoon and fined £70 for driving carelessly in Dublin in July last. It would have been possible for the court to have disqualified him from driving. We have to use the existing laws, inadequate as they are, to make sure that we bring this person and his associates to task. We must no longer allow them to roam the streets and to play a cat and mouse game with the Garda Síochána. It is just not good enough. The reform in the Garda Síochána structure by putting more manpower into the special surveillance unit is not in itself sufficient. We need laws to back up the Garda and to make sure that these people can be convicted.
I am sure that Deputy Woods as Minister for Social Welfare will agree that the minimum amount needed to keep any car on the road is £1,000 per year. The minimum amount required to live in a house in the area known as Cowper Road in Rathmines must be at least £2,000 per annum. I understand this person paid cash for that house when he bought it. I want the Minister to make an example of the people shown last night and to have them disqualified immediately from social welfare payments. I want all their cases examined. I want the Department to work in future in conjunction with the Garda Síochána to ensure that any persons suspected of being involved in serious crime have their means fully investigated before any means-tested social welfare benefits are paid to them. I have dealt time and again with ordinary individuals applying for non-contributory widow's or old age pensions. They have to fill in an enormous number of forms and go through many procedures in order to show the Department of Social Welfare that they qualify for a particular payment. It is right that they should be means-tested properly, but it galls me, and I am sure most of them, to see how easy it is for some people to slip through the system.
I can understand how it happens. In the special investigation unit of the Department of Social Welfare there are, I understand, 35 social welfare officers and seven supervisors. They have to deal with 742,000 recipients, approximately 17,800 each. There is no way that one individual can supervise 17,800 recipients and make sure there is no defrauding of the system. It is impossible. The Jobsearch scheme currently in place has offered worthwhile job opportunities to some people and has also rooted out some of the abuse, but the people who are abusing the system know full well that the chances of being caught are very slim and they are prepared to take their chances. Two of them said on last night's programme that even when they robbed the post offices and got a few thousand pounds they still signed on because they knew if they did not there would be questions asked the following week. It was better to keep signing on because then they would not get caught.
I do not blame this Minister or any other Minister. I blame the attitudes whereby we make certain welfare payments to everybody regardless of their means. We have perhaps the most complicated system of social welfare in any developed country, yet our resources are such that we should begin to be selective in the payment of social welfare. In particular we must take social welfare payments away from those who do not need them and give them to those who do. We must rationalise the system so that we have fewer social welfare schemes. If we had a simpler system we would have more people to put into the special investigation unit. My colleague, Deputy O'Malley, said today that the persons currently employed by the Land Commission, which is long since defunct, should be put into the special investigation unit to increase its manpower.
We must give powers to the Revenue Commissioners to investigate how people have acquired certain wealth. That was eventually how Al Capone was caught and it is perhaps the most effective way of catching some of these people. If we put the squeeze on their financial resources and ensure that crime does not pay, many of these criminals will not be interested in crime. They are flouting the laws. They arrogantly dismiss everybody. They play a cat and mouse game with the Garda Síochána. They seek to intimidate producers of programmes and, indeed, Deputies who speak out. They must not be allowed to intimidate those in our society who want to protect our democratic values and to ensure that ordinary decent people who look to this State for help through the social welfare system are not defrauded. When criminals defraud the system they are defrauding the most vulnerable, the most marginal people in society. For that reason too they must be rooted out.
Mr. Cahill explained on last night's programme that he had a job but was also seeking a job through AnCO. Has he ever been offered a job through the Jobsearch programme? Perhaps not. He might be a worthy candidate to be offered such a job. I do not know. It is unfortunate that it took journalists on an RTE programme to bring this matter to the notice of the Department of Social Welfare. I have discovered through conversations with the housing department of Dublin Corporation that it also took this programme to bring it to their attention that this person was in a house in Swan Grove.
It is up to us as legislators to up-date the criminal law and make sure it is capable of dealing with today's sophisticated crime. We need to establish as a matter of urgency a committee for that purpose. We should give that committee a short time to report in order to make sure that the criminal law is capable of getting criminals behind bars where they should be and where they should stay. It is unfortunate that we have not seen fit to do so. Who would believe that it is a criminal offence in Ireland today to shake one's rug outside one's house before 8 o'clock in the morning? Yet what we saw last night is freely allowed. It is an absolute farce that our laws in this area date back in the main to the 1840s, the 1850s and the early years of this century. We must make the laws effective. If we do not, the Garda will not be able to bring these people to justice and take them away from our streets.
There has been much talk in recent days about justice in the United Kingdom and much concern has rightly been expressed by Irish citizens about the quality of justice there. After last night's programme many people will look at our own judicial and legal system and ask whether there is justice in Ireland and whether our system is capable of dealing with today's modern and sophisticated crime.
