The problems of countering organised cross-Border crime in Europe were discussed at an EU conference organised under the "Oisín" initiative in Co Monaghan yesterday.
Senior justice officials and police officers from the EU, US and Canada attended the conference which is part of a series of such conferences organised by the Garda's Northern Region and supported by the EU.
Assistant Commissioner Mr Kevin Carty, one of the organisers, said organised crime had shown itself to be extremely adept at exploiting the open frontiers within Europe.
"Basically you have 15 member-states and all of them have different police forces and different laws.
"The police have to stop at the borders but the criminals don't. The criminals are exploiting this weakness.
"It is a matter of importance to address this state of affairs, to make life easier for the police on the ground in order to catch these people - keeping the borders open for business but closed for crime."
The Oisín project, which was set up in 1996 and holds regular meetings for EU and American law enforcement officers, is examining ways to implement the joint investigation teams proposed under the Amsterdam Treaty.
Yesterday's conference also discussed the provisions of the Schengen Agreement which involves co-operation between police forces and government agencies, particularly on illegal immigration.
Mr Carty said that after drug trafficking, human trafficking had become the biggest area of organised crime in the EU.
He said that it affected the Republic because a large proportion of illegal immigrants coming into the State were doing so under the control of organised crime groups. The Garda and PSNI, which was also represented at yesterday's conference, are working together to counter human trafficking as one of the main routes of illegal immigration into the Republic is through Northern Ireland.