McDowell calls for joint approach to crime

Organised crime gangs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and running rings around local gardaí and law enforcement agencies, the Justice Minister claimed today.

Opening the first European conference on developing public/private partnerships to deal with organised crime, Michael McDowell said that, despite attempts to counteract serious crime, such gangs were forging alliances beyond all boundaries in order to continue their activities.

“These activities are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their planning and execution,” he said.

“They are ever-extending into new areas of technology and innovation.”

Describing criminals as “creatures of opportunity”, he added that easier cross-border movements of goods and people was an opportunity being exploited by criminals.

“Local law enforcement would be hard-pressed to track developments in one element of this maze of crime,” he said.

“On this island, organised criminals have used the land border to facilitate their activities and, in some cases – for example, fuel smuggling – have used it to provide the raison d’être of the criminal enterprise.

“While we may say that the borders are coming down in Europe, organised criminals have traditionally exploited and will continue to exploit the practical problems borders present for law enforcement agencies and for criminal justice systems.”

Mr McDowell said no one arm of the state or any one element of society could effectively tackle highly-organised criminal groups by itself.

He is hoping that the conclusions drawn from the conference will assist the Irish EU presidency, beginning in January 2004, in developing a work programme with other EU countries.

Over 300 public and private sector representatives, from current EU member states and countries in line to become members, took part in the conference at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin.

Mr McDowell told them action had to be taken to curb organised crime.

“It isn’t victimless,” he said.

“It doesn’t affect some faceless group of big businessmen. It affects everyone.

“It affects every person whose small business is undermined by the black market, every worker who has to be laid off because legitimate businesses are failing, every citizen who suffers cuts in public services because governments are robbed of vital revenue through illicit trade and money laundering.”

The minister cited the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) in Northern Ireland as a good model on which to base the initiative. The Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Jane Kennedy, described the force’s success.

The conference aims to produce an Outcome Declaration with recommendations that will help to shape future European policy on the prevention of organised crime activities.