Mr. Justin Kelly:

Most economic crime offences are reported at local Garda stations. Some people may have a perception that everything comes to the GNECB but most of the incidents to which I referred, of which there are approximately 1,000 per month, are reported at local stations. Within every division, we have specialists who have the skills to investigate these reports. On top of that, we issue detailed instructions for our front-line people, setting out the steps to take if a person comes in to say he or she has been the victim of this type of economic crime, whether it is phishing or whatever. In addition, there are supervisors in place to ensure that is all done correctly. If there are particularly complex cases or ones that would overwhelm local resources, we have a system whereby they come up to the GNECB, which will either assist the local stations in those investigations by providing advice or personnel or, in some cases, take over the investigation.