...Mr. Niall Cody: We have provided up-to-date information to the committee in relation to the MV Matthew. It is worthwhile to go over how the ship ended up in our control. The MV Matthew is a very large ship that was used for the smuggling of 2,250 kg of cocaine into the State. It was taken out by Revenue, the Army Rangers, the Navy and the Garda. This was the largest seizure of cocaine ever in the country and one of the largest ever in Europe. The seizure of the vessel was unprecedented. This vessel was bought by an international crime gang to import a consignment of drugs, and 2,500 kg is a lot of cocaine. In the context of the size of the ship, the consignment took up a very small portion of it. This happened in September 2023...

Deputy James Geoghegan: To close this out a little bit, if I understood Mr. Cody correctly, he wanted to make it clear, presumably to the people trying to smuggle drugs into this country, that notwithstanding any purported criticism of how this seized vessel is being managed from a cost perspective, it is not going to deter the Revenue from catching drug smugglers coming into this country. Is that the point Mr. Cody is trying to make?

Mr. Niall Cody: It absolutely is. Even our colleagues in the Army rangers who were authorised as customs officials for the day of the raid - and it was an excellent operation - wondered to us if it would deter us from doing the same again. We told them that it absolutely would not deter us. We have never had to dispose of anything like this before. There are things we would do a little differently. We are reviewing what we are doing. I hope we will manage to dispose of the vessel in the first half of next year and at that stage we will carry out a detailed review of every aspect to see what we could do better and could not do better. We would be quite comfortable if the Comptroller and Auditor General wanted to do a review of the whole exercise when it is concluded.

Deputy James Geoghegan: Is it the intention of Revenue to ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit how it has managed the vessel? It is not the only agency in Europe-----

Mr. Niall Cody: Absolutely not.

Deputy James Geoghegan: -----that seizes drug vessels. Presumably other states have seized drug vessels and are dealing with similar issues. What lessons have been learned from those observations?

Mr. Niall Cody: Ms Kennedy is the director general at customs and talked to her international colleagues. Some of the costs for these seized vessels that would put our €12 million in the ha'penny place.....

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