Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree. I do not underestimate the challenge in relation to this and the ability of fraudsters to launch attacks at scale. The analogy about whack-a-mole is a real one. There has been success in some of this activity in the past year, but that is also measured against the Covid period during which there was a massive amount of online retail. If Covid is stripped away and we look at 2019, we are up 90%, even with the drop last year.

The witnesses have mentioned before that there are 4,000 money mules associated with the investigations in hand. Are those figures increasing or decreasing in the view of the witnesses? I have seen some of the reporting on this and people before the courts perhaps receiving suspended sentences and so on. Through the court system, we are able to find out that somebody was offered €3,000 or €4,000 for allowing their account to be accessed. There is an important job for the media in this regard to send out a signal that this is not just easy money, that it is a criminal conviction and they could face 18 months or so in prison. What is the witnesses' message to the money mules? I know the Garda raised the issue with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, who happened also to be the Minister for Justice for a period. There are also older people becoming involved in money muling as well. What is the witnesses' message to money mules?