Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

The witnesses are welcome. I apologise that I was late; I was at a meeting.

My first point is in relation to the implementation of an SMS scam filter. We need to clamp down on fraudsters. It is a massive issue, particularly for the most vulnerable in society. I get representations to my office on a regular basis of people who are embarrassed because they have been defrauded. Sometimes, the fraudsters are so skilled and the messages are so professional looking that it is very easy to get caught. I am not talking about the email that a Nigerian prince is going to give you €10 billion. I am talking about a message from An Post asking for bank details and that a parcel is waiting, for example. We have to clamp down on these fraudsters. A lot of the time, they are pretending to be big businesses in the hope of exploiting the customer base.

Research shows that we are way behind other English-speaking countries. The likes of the UK, USA, Canada and Australia are all way ahead of us in terms of this SMS scam filter. Even at European level, an SMS filter is already in place in some member states. I know the introduction of an SMS scam filter in Ireland would require new legislation by the Department, but I think we need to do more in this space. We are potentially failing our citizens by not protecting them more. I am looking for feedback from the witnesses in relation to that. I know work has happened behind the scenes but there needs to be more of an energy around this because people, be they vulnerable 80-year-olds or young people, are getting conned out of money. Good, hard-working people are getting these messages and it is costing them hundreds of thousands of euro. What are we going to do to sort this for them?