The Government announced today it has approved the drafting of a new Bill targeting white collar crime.
Following a legal review, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is proposing to amend the criminal law to improve some procedural matters and strengthen Garda investigative powers.
In a statement, the Minister said: "These proposals include a new system to make more effective use of detention periods. Under the new system, it will be possible for persons detained and arrested for questioning to be released and their detention suspended so that further investigations can be conducted during the suspension period.
"I am also proposing a range of powers to require persons to answer questions and provide information," Mr Ahern said.
"Our laws must be robust and when they require change they must be changed. . . . This new law follows my request this summer to the Garda Commissioner to give me proposals in relation to new laws he believes are required on foot of the current Garda enquiries in relation to bank fraud and financial irregularities."
The Minister said the Bill, while largely procedural, would help in the investigation and prosecution of complex white collar crime.
The existing law, under which a person may be detained for questioning by the gardaí for a specified period would be amended to allow the period of detention to be broken into segments and the person released on station bail in the intervening periods.
A person arrested could therefore be released while gardaí made further inquiries into what was said, and gardaí could rearrest the individual to continue questioning at a later stage.
According to the Department of Justice, the amount of data and complexity of recent investigations "have shown that it is not possible to complete questioning and check facts in one period of detention".
"There has been a reluctance for potential witnesses to make statements assisting the Gardaí in their current investigation. It has been suggested that there be a statutory obligation to make such statements and failure to make a statement would be an offence."
Among other provisions, the Minister is also proposing a legal obligation be imposed on banks and other institutions to produce material relevant to an investigation and that this must also be "accompanied by an appropriate certificate/statement of evidence identifying and indexing the relevant documentation and allowing for its admissibility as evidence".
