Ms Niamh Davenport:

We do not have all the data to which the Deputy has referred. We conducted a research survey in 2021 and 98% of those surveyed said they could identify one of the fake text messages. As I said, and I am sorry to sound like a broken record, education and awareness are important. We do a lot of work on text message scams in particular and trying to make people understand what a text message should look like. If there is a link in a text message, it is more than likely a fake message. That is our key piece of advice. Unfortunately, I can only say that about the inclusion of a link where the banks are concerned. Some companies put links in their text messages and there is nothing we can do to stop that.

We are working on a number of projects and hope that as time passes, we will be able to collate more of the information to which the Deputy has referred. We also hope to provide further protection around preventing the messages in the first place. Anecdotally, members have told us that only 10% of people will click on the links in text messages and continue on. That is a low percentage.

In terms of how easy it is to send the text messages, we know that people can buy the relevant equipment online. Some 50,000 text messages could be sent out in a matter of hours. That equipment is, unfortunately, readily available online. It is an easy scam to commit. The more education we do and awareness we create around what text messages look like and what to look out for, the better. We regularly send alerts to let people know if we see a new scam. The Deputy mentioned eFlow and we have done plenty of alerts about that scam. We will continue to do that.

Scammers use scenarios that are in the news. During the pandemic, we saw messages informing people they were close contacts of someone who had been infected and asking them to click on a link. We do a lot of education and awareness around the different scams and try to keep people alert to what is going on but it is an ongoing battle.