6 Jun 2012, 16:58
Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation John Perry TD will attend the meeting of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality tomorrow, Thursday, 7th June to discuss a motion on a proposal for a directive in the freezing and confiscation of proceeds of crime in the European Union.
The proposal puts forward new rules for more effective and widespread confiscation of funds and other property acquired through crime. It seeks to:
• Provide for clearer and more efficient rules for confiscating assets including assets not directly linked to a specific crime, but which result from similar criminal activities by the convicted person (extended confiscation);
• Strengthen the rules on confiscation of assets that are transferred to a third party;
• Allow for limited non-conviction based confiscation e.g. where the person is dead, permanently ill or has fled;
• Provide for temporary freezing measures which would subsequently be confirmed by a court; and
• Introduce a requirement to manage frozen assets so that they do not lose economic value.
Chairman of the Committee, Deputy David Stanton said: “The proposal seeks to put in place only minimum rules allowing national legislation to be more far reaching. Ireland’s current regime for the confiscation of proceeds of crime would be considered quite advanced and we are one of the few Member States which has adopted both conviction based and non-conviction based models for the confiscation of proceeds of crime. Nevertheless, it is understood that this proposal would give rise to significant legislative change to our current criminal confiscation regime. Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to consider the proposal in-depth with the Minister and discuss how it would impact on our current legislation.”
This meeting will start tomorrow, Thursday, 7th June, in Committee Room 2, Leinster House 2000 at 9.30am.
Committee proceedings can be followed live at:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/documents/livewebcast/Web-Live.htm&CatID=83&m=o
For further information please contact:
Ciaran Brennan,
Houses of the Oireachtas,
Communications Unit,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2
P: +3531 618 3903
M: 086-0496518
F: +3531 618 4551
Committee Membership
Deputies:
Dara Calleary, Michael Creed, Alan Farrell, Anne Ferris [Vice-Chairman],Tom Hayes, Seán Kenny, Finian McGrath, Jonathan O’Brien and David Stanton (Chairman)
Senators:
Ivana Bacik, Paul Bradford, Martin Conway, Rónán Mullen, Denis O’Donovan.