The Lisbon Treaty helps us to tackle problems that have become too big for us to handle all on our own. Criminal gangs don’t respect Irish borders. We need greater European co-operation to tackle this problem. The Lisbon Treaty will promote this greater co-operation between EU police forces and judiciaries. After her murder, Veronica Guerin’s killers fled to Amsterdam. Thankfully, Veronica’s killers were brought to justice but only after a lengthy extradition battle. Crimes like this continue to be perpetrated in Ireland with murderers, human traffickers and drug lords escaping beyond the reach of our police. At present there are nine Irish gangs operating across Europe. These are controlled by crime lords sitting by swimming pools in villas along the Spanish coast.

The Articles:

• Article 83 of the Lisbon Treaty empowers the EU to co-operate in tackling “serious crime with a cross-border dimension”. These are activities such as drug smuggling, a growing problem that funds criminal gangs.
• This co-operation doesn’t have to entail significant changes to our criminal justice system but isn’t includes common-sense measures outlined in Article 87 such as training and exchange of staff and cooperation on equipment and on research into crime-detection. In terms of being able to tackle the problems of cross-border gang crime co-operation would mean “common investigative techniques in relation to the detection of serious forms of organised crime.”
• We need to protect the women and children who are being exploited by criminal gangs and trafficked as sex workers. It is often the young and vulnerable who are continually raped and abused in brothels for the financial gain of criminals. Article 79.2 of the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU the power to combat human trafficking in particular women and children

The EU under Lisbon will be better equipped to tackle the serious problems created by cross-border crime. Human-trafficking, drug-smuggling and money laundering need to be tackled by 27 member states together, not only by us on our own.  Lets co-operate to combat organised crime.

On October 2nd, Vote YES to Lisbon