Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are two ends to this. First, we want a strategy where we are all pointing in the same direction. This is online fraud. As I said, 4,000 people lost €17 million. Some 4,000 people were, on average, robbed of more than €4,000 each that year. The same probably happened last year and it is likely to be more this year, yet we do not have a national strategy. The second issue that I cannot get my head around, which was touched on, is that we do not have a sharing of information. Mr. Walsh talked about Britain and how Britain is closing down. Britain has information sharing in respect of a fraud database and has for quite a while. The Netherlands has the Dutch transaction monitoring initiative that maps out networks of linked fraudulent accounts. I know the banking industry has been looking for this ability to share information. Can the witnesses explain to this committee why the Department or Government are not allowing banks to share information to try to stamp this down? We are talking about APP frauds, where the victims are the customers. However, in terms of unauthorised frauds, it is the banks that are taking a hit. Obviously, resources have to be put in. Why is the Department not moving with urgency to allow for a shared fraud database across the sector?