Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 9, to delete lines 1 and 2 and substitute the following:“(a) corruptly requests,

(b) corruptly accepts or obtains, or

(c) corruptly agrees to accept,”.

These amendments are as a result of the recently agreed EU directive I mentioned at the outset. It is a directive on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests. The purpose of amendments Nos. 4, 5, 13 and 14 is to deal with technical consequential matters arising from the requirement to transpose that directive. As this Bill is intended to consolidate and clarify the law in respect of corruption, it is important that the amendments to give effect to this directive are inserted into the Bill prior to its enactment.

Amendment No. 4 amends the offence of passive corruption to include the act of requesting a gift, consideration or advantage. The directive requires us to criminalise such behaviour and advice was sought on the issue. The Department was advised that it would be much clearer to include specific reference to requests, rather than rely on any common law interpretation that might be found. Amendment No. 5 is essentially making the same change to the trading in influence offence.

Amendment No. 13 inserts the corruption offences and related definitions from the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 into Schedule 2 to the Bill in order that they be repealed. International organisations such as the OECD have criticised Ireland in the past for having corruption offences in the main corruption legislation but also slightly differing corruption offences within the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. While we acknowledged the need for consistency in the Statute Book, it would have been imprudent to repeal the corruption offences in the 2001 Act until the new EU directive had been agreed. I am now satisfied that the offences in the 2001 Act can be safely repealed.

Amendment No. 14 inserts into the Long Title a reference to Directive (EU) 2017/1371 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2017 on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law, as this Bill will give partial effect to that directive.