Irish Cabinet approves new bill which supports directives of 5AML

January 4, 2019

The Irish Cabinet has approved the proposal on new anti-money laundering legislation presented by Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan.

Following this, changes will be made in the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Bill 2019.

The newly approved Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Bill 2019 will strengthen existing AML legislation and implement provisions set out in 5AML.

Provisions include, prevent risks with the use of virtual currencies for terrorist financing and limiting the use of prepaid cards. It will also safeguard financial transactions from high-risk third countries, broaden the scope of designated bodies under the existing legislation, enhance customer due diligence requirements, and prevent credit and financial institutions from creating anonymous safe-deposit boxes.

Alongside all of this, the bill also has a number of technical amendments to other provisions of the Acts which are already in force.

The bill also has provisions which are not required by 5AML, and support the Criminal Assets Bureau and An Garda Síochána (Ireland’s national police force) with their power to access bank records and the administration of the AML functions.

Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan said, “This is another important piece of legislation for tackling money-laundering. The reality is that money laundering is a crime that helps serious criminals and terrorists to function, destroying lives in the process.

“Criminals seek to exploit the EU’s open borders and EU-wide measures are vital for that reason. Ireland strongly supports the provisions in the Fifth EU Money Laundering Directive.”

While the Bill transposes many provisions outlined in the fifth EU Money Laundering Directive, the Department of Finance is also working to put into effect certain provisions of the directive. This includes transparency around company ownership and trusts by implementing beneficial ownership registers and ensuring the creation and access of centralised national bank and payment account registers or central data retrieval.