Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure there are few people in this House who have not got a notification from their bank on their phone to say that an attempt was made to pay for a holiday or product that they were not involved in and that it has stopped it. The banks are working on this, but I am talking about figures about where fraudsters have been successful. The success rate of fraudsters has increased 51% year on year in relation to tricking customers into making credit transfers. As I have said, some 2,375 individuals lost €9.2 million in one particular area of fraud. There has been an 80% increase in fraud-linked scams, with €15.6 million conned out of individuals. These numbers are all going in the wrong direction and there is a tipping point.

There are shared fraud databases in other European jurisdictions. Is the Government looking at that? Is it looking at recommendations coming from other jurisdictions? Does the Minister have a view on whether amendments should be made to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, given that some online platforms host these fraudulent scams? Many of these scams happen in texts and phone calls, but some are on online platforms where an individual is tricked into clicking a button and there is phishing going on at the other end of that. What is the Department doing about the fact that online fraud has increased dramatically in the past year and there is a huge threat it will increase dramatically in the last part of this year, given that 1 million customers have to move accounts, 1 million direct debits will move and so on? There is concern that online fraud may be exaggerated because of the movement we are seeing in the banking industry. What, if anything, has the Department done, knowing that this movement has happened out there and that the fraudsters are often organised crime gangs?