Fuel fraud and criminal intimidation
Senators Coghlan and Heffernan welcome stronger fuel-marking measures and highlight the damage fuel laundering and associated criminal organisations cause to businesses and communities.
We all know in this House how difficult fuel fraud is for the Revenue Commissioners who have direct responsibility for it and the serious threat this criminal activity poses to legitimate businesses, North and South. Senator Wilson recognises how well these people perform in their illegal activity dealing with stretched petrol and laundered diesel. I welcome the recent announcement by the Minister for Finance regarding the introduction on 1 April 2015 of a new and more effective product for marking rebated fuels that was identified as a result of a joint process conducted with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the United Kingdom. The work of Revenue officers in testing fuel for the presence of the new marker will be supported by mobile equipment that will allow on-the-spot analysis of samples. We wish them well. Anything that can be done to strengthen the Revenue Commissioners' hand in combating this must be done.
I know that the issue arose at the previous meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh. The report that was adopted in this Chamber at the plenary session of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in February recommended that a task force be set up. The Revenue Commissioners cannot deal with this on their own. The PSNI in the North and An Garda Síochána in the South cannot deal with this on their own. There are 34 Border crossings in the Dundalk region alone. These people have been known to break roadblocks on occasion. Apart from that, it is impossible to police 34 Border crossings so we must get real. It must be done an all-agency basis that involves the Revenue Commissioners, the Customs service, the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Environmental Protection Agency in addition to An Garda Síochána and the PSNI. These people have been in business on the Border for 20 or 30 years. If this is not adopted, they will remain in business for the next 20 or 30 years.
Comment on this
I support the point made by Senator Paul Coghlan. I have said a few times in this House that the criminal organisations we are talking about are largely run by the Provisional IRA. Whatever difficulties they pose for small businesses, the threats, intimidation and tactics they use to control and subjugate their own communities are quite abhorrent. There does not seem to be a massive amount of will on the part of the police to tackle them. I do not know whether it is down to resources. It seems that this artificial peace process is being protected at all costs.
I also wish to raise the issue of the N20 motorway between Cork and Limerick. I wished to raise the matter under the Commencement debate today. It relates to connectivity between Ireland's second and third largest cities. It is a major barrier to investment in County Limerick in particular but also in the south, south-west and mid-west regions. If we do not have that kind of road connectivity between two of the country's major cities, it is quite inhibiting. My Commencement matter was ruled out of order because a similar matter had apparently been raised a couple of weeks ago so I amended my Commencement matter in such a way as to make it different. I have been in contact with a civil engineer of considerable experience based in Austria who has proposed a different public private partnership model from the one used by the National Roads Authority and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. This model is an enhanced public private partnership model that could go some way towards solving the issue of connectivity between Cork and Limerick. I use the road quite often. There are always tailbacks between Mallow, Buttevant and Charleville and there are some terribly dangerous accident blackspots in Rockhill, Anahid Cross and O'Rourke's Cross. This project has been put on the long finger for far too long and is something County Limerick really needs. Will the Cathaoirleach consider a Commencement matter I will resubmit? I hope it will be taken because it is the only opportunity I will get to hear from the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport about this very important project.