Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Kelly. I will ask my remaining questions together. There have been investment scams where, as I said, people have ended up out of pocket by €60,000 or €70,000. Some of these investment scams are advertised on social media platforms. Are they ever prosecuted for their participation and for taking money from a scam? What learnings have there been from that?

Turning to the Department of Justice, we are hearing about all the problems here, with so many victims and so on, yet there is no national strategy for combating economic crime. It was promised a couple of years ago but it still is not there. How can the Department justify this not being given priority at a departmental level?

Furthermore, the banks are looking to share data to assist the Garda with what it is doing to deal with issues in real time, yet the shared fraud database is somehow, we understand, being frustrated and prevented from coming into being by the Department or the Minister. Will the officials give the committee some rationale in light of the number of victims? Why is there no strategy for combating economic crime, despite it having been promised in the first quarter of 2021? It is more than two years late. Why is the Department frustrating the establishment by the banks of a shared fraud database?