MINISTER LOBBIES FOR DUBLIN HQ OF EU’S ‘CAB WITHOUT BORDERS’
A NEW cross-border European AntiMoney Laundering Authority (ALA) will shortly be set up and Ireland is competing strongly to be its European headquarters, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has revealed.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, the junior minister said the agency’s role ‘is to go after criminals and basically take their money’.
She said: ‘[It’s] a bit like the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) but on a crossborder basis. CAB recovers assets. This new agency will go after the washing of the money. It goes after the actual funds that are used to purchase these assets.
‘CAB will take your house, if you are a criminal; ALA will stop you getting your cash in the first place,’ Ms Carroll MacNeill explained.
‘It will supervise your financial institutions but also a certain number of non-financial institutions like your golf clubs, your funeral homes, anywhere money-laundering might be going on.’
The junior minister at the Department of Finance said that criminals are ‘creative and Europe needs to be able to go after people’.
‘This will co-ordinate all of the financial intelligence units the police forces have surrounding tracking money and resources.
‘This will be an important method of confiscating the profits of drug crime, the profits of human trafficking, and of terrorist financing.’
Apart from its impact on crime, the establishment of the super-agency will have a significant benefit for the state that is chosen to host the crossEuropean body.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said nine countries are competing to secure the agency’s HQ.
‘I’m parading around Europe looking for votes. It represents at least 400 and possibly up to 700 jobs for Dublin. We are competing very strongly. We are a major financial services hub. We are the second-biggest place in Europe for funds. We have all the major international banks,’ she said.
‘Myself and Michael McGrath are doing everything we can to try to tell the Irish story and compete as hard as we can. We are working very well together,’ she added.
A decision is expected in February.