Ms Derville Rowland:

We will not have a full line of sight on all of the increases in every type of fraud in Ireland or globally because they manifest in many different ways. If the fraud is deception, there is a lot of social modelling whereby people lure others in. A lot of it involves payment. People are deceived by a fraud, no matter how it comes about, such as counterfeit goods purchased online from a country where people think they are going to get a cheaper product but do not get anything at all. It could be financial scams and promotions which are illegal. There are boiler room scams from jurisdictions that offer a new investment opportunity that is totally false. A website could be put up that is very similar to a legitimate regulated entity. People can receive text messages to their phones to tell them they have an extra charge - I received one yesterday telling me I had an extra charge from An Post - and that they should submit their card details. There are myriad different typologies of crime that are coming through. A lot of money-laundering or predicate offences are crimes. A key component of this is that some of those frauds can penetrate financial systems without the authorisation of the underlying owner. That is an unauthorised payment fraud. There can be authorised fraud, whereby people are deceived and pay.

We see an increase in fraud and we are working on this at a lot of levels, including globally, to try to learn from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, the UK and others across the globe to try to come at this from a different point of view. If I can use the phrase, we see an uptick but I do not have the data for the whole of the Irish system. For many types of fraud, a key component is the benefits and risks of digitisation and online media.

I welcome the coming into force of the Digital Services Act, which is a direct effect regulation from Europe. A lot of Internet service providers are now regulated. There is legislation supporting the passage of that Act going through the Houses right now, with a target date of 17 February for it to come into force. Coimisiún na Meánis to be the co-ordinating regulator in Ireland. We will engage with it to try to become a preferred entity in regulation so that we can contact providers directly and take content down. There have been increases in myriad types of fraud.