Mattie McGrath decries four-year delay on counterfeiting bill

I'm not going to do counterfeiting, but if the cap fits, someone must wear it, and it is a pity when personal allergies come into the situation. Deputy, this is on the counterfeiting bill now, so don't try my patience. I am, of course, and I thank you for your indulgence. I haven't indulged you. Well, you might have to yet, so I thank you in anticipation. Is that all right? Listen, I want to make a few brief comments on this bill. I have questions asked for the Minister, certainly. And I can't catch this. Can't fall grow a sea. Ceilabhlein deith. Why is it a ceilabhlein deith? Why is it four years? Why are we so far behind, you know, four years later? I know you weren't, the Minister, then, but the patterns seem to be lagging here. As I said, the bill provides for transposition of outstanding elements of the Directive 2014-62-EU, the Directive on the protection of the Euro and other currencies against outstanding counterfeiting. We know we nearly lost the Euro back in 2008-09, and we know the price that we paid in this country, and will pay, and our grandchildren, and your grandchildren, will pay for that bailing out of the banks, in June of 69 billion. The Taoiseach said recently, we had no bailout, so selective memory loss. Excuse me. And it's very important that we do. And we must think of, you know, I welcome this in ways, but in other ways I'm worried. Because how many more pieces of legislation there's another case to have for the Ontario, our waiting out there from the EU, with demands, or pressure, or whatever way they operate, fines, or whatever, for us to implement at their behest. And where is the sovereignty of our own parliament and our own self-determination done? Since I was quite young at the time in 73, but I remember putting up posters and helping out when we joined the EU, certainly. We had great hopes for them. And we did benefit, a lot of benefits out of the EU. But now it seems to be all payback time, and we know we're net contributors now rather than beneficiaries. And we know the last deal, the Chiefs have tried to dress it up as a good one. It's a horrible deal. It's a horrible deal. But this area here, there's huge areas for roguery, as it's called roguery, and we should be acting to stop that anyway, on our own terms, without being prodded and nodded and coerced by the EU. Because, as we said by others, and I was at parties that meeting yesterday evening on Zoom organized by and talked to Nocton for the young scientists, and we all missed it this year and the innovation and expertise, but to see where they can bring us. And the question worth put to the young chap, the winner from West Cork, Bandon I think, was he contacted, had he been contacted by any of the, of the tech giants? And he said no. Now maybe did he expect to be, or would he want to be, but at least the ideas are out there, and we need to bring them forward and let the young people show us. Now I'm very poor at IT skills and everything else, but there's huge areas for deceit and deception and downright fraud associated with online. And other speakers have referred to it earlier, about people, you know, getting all these offers online and everything else. and we know the pressure that it's putting on, inadvertently I suppose, is putting on local small traders who can compete. I know there's some grants for people to go online, but that is a big area. So as I said, how much more legislation, you might answer those in your prime, and why are we four years in transposing this? As I said, you know, it's the wild west in banking, here in this country. And, you know, in the past, and I've been dealing with banks since 19, I suppose, 67 or eight, or nine, 70. And to think that, you know, I'd be very poor, having a bit of eyesight, I always held up the notes to see, is there a line down to them or whatever, but my understanding is that the tellers, whoever counted the notes in the bank, if banks came in, that were, if notes came in that were legal tender, or counterfeit, and the teller signed off on them, they had to pay that out of their own pocket. So it seems to me to be, I'm an employer as well, in the business that I have, and I, we couldn't treat, I wouldn't treat employees like that. We all have breakages and damages, whatever way to work, to do our best we, but you don't have punitive measures to punish the employee. And it seems the banks can do what they like, they can punish the customers, 24-7. And I won't use the adjective, but that's what they do to them. But, they can punish their staff. And then when you have, you know, hard working people behind the counter, whether they're in shops, whether they're in fast food outlets, take away, whether they're in, you know, any kind of small business, and they get, it's even worse. I suppose when they're in a business, if they get a cash payment, for something, a service, a funeral provider, or something that's quite big, and sometimes it's thrown off from the credit union, given the cash, and if counterfeit notes come in, you're in trouble. And we deal in good faith, and mainly in Irish business, and we deal with people on an honest basis that they don't know. Sometimes they get money, and it's not, it's not, some of the notes are counterfeit, and they don't know it. I was suspecting they pass it on, and that's genuine. But then there is the, the crimes, and the people out there on crime, and I want to salute cab, and the different forensic outfits, not outfits, but units in Ghana, and Chicana. And I want to salute cab yesterday, in my own constituency, in the very south of it, and a big operation there, and freezing 540,000 euro. We can't have enough of cab. And in this area, and I want to support the community policing, because, you know, they get to know the people. And we've seen since the onset of, of the COVID, that the communities have gone back into their, where they're best at, standing in the people's kitchens, helping out, not the colour like Hela, helping out the, the, the, the elderly in front of the community, and getting to know them. And you get to know the people like that, and then you know where, and you get information, not in a, in a barracks being open, or whatever else, but it's engaging on the ground. And if you'll allow me to address a small bit, Cahill, look, I did ask you earlier, for some, to the community policing, and the Cahill, and I've seen, you've seen them in your own constituency in Dublin, they're all being withdrawn now. And that's a big disappointment. I'm talking about, it's very important, community policing is very important here, and this. Yeah. Of course it has. Because the community will get information. I haven't, Nothing to do with counterfeit, the topic, the counterfitting bill though. No, the reason, of course it has, because if the community guard stands in the people's kitchens, gets to know the families, gets to know the people, gets to know who's a bit dodgy in the area, and will gather information like that, and they pass it on. Of course it has. Very important to know where someone has a lot of cash, and people are wondering where they have it, and you know, the means of getting. Of course it's very important. Back to basics. To solving crime. There'll be counterfeit notes, I'm going to be playing like bank robbery. It's very important to have the community connection. They will get the trust of the people, and I'm not calling informers, because that word has gone out with the flood. The people are civic minded to tell. There's things going on here, that shouldn't be going on here, and we need to support them. So, I want to salute my community guard, on the side of Maloney, in the care district, and indeed, Ray, and indeed, Ginny Gough, and get an old Levin. And it's on men as well, and all over County Tipperary. So, it's a pity, the visibility of those cars alone, but they've all been taken back, and the units are under pressure again. So, we need them in the community. All crime, whether it be counterfeiting, or whether it be violence against men or women, or anything, that care D can't manage. No police force in the world can operate without the support of the public. That has been learned world over, and we need the support of the public, and to get the support of the public, the community guard is the way to get them. The old style, they've gone into the people, they had the information, and support of the people, and the people needed them, and it'll come back in spatefuls. As I said, with the cars now, and transactions on cars, it's very easy, with cameras, and we can see that, with the cars, you don't have to put in your PIN number, just swiping. There's huge areas for fraud, and we need to be able to deal with that. And the small businesses are wide open to be plundered, and goodness knows, they're troubled enough at the moment, under enough pressure. We don't have all this kind of technical fraud, and that. So we need CAP to be reinforced. We need, as I said, all the owners of the Scottish economy to be able to deal with that, and we need all Gauraday diners supposed to be re-educated. Like in any work of life, my own included, you have to learn something every day. It's a bad day, you don't learn something new. So it's, these criminals can be ahead of us, and not can be, but are normally ahead of us. And they're international, and we can see actions yesterday as well, in different frontiers against Irish-based criminals. So they have wide captains, and they have expansive networks, and it's very important that we do reinforce this piece of legislation, but as I said, my questions remain. Why are we four years after the fact? how many more pieces are lined up on the legislation? We had one again quite recently, it was last week, where we were fined. So why are we so slow? And then we must be very ever careful that we don't diminish our sovereignty as well. It's time to be wearing two hats, I suppose, having the benefits of European membership. It's important, I suppose, and they can nod us along to bring this legislation, but we should be bringing forward legislation to deal with these kind of issues, our own legislation, and have it brought in here and debated and legally scrutinised and put into being as well. Thank you very much. Thank you.