Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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As I said, I commend the Central Bank on the public awareness campaign. We will need a lot more of them as these frauds become more sophisticated and develop over time, as we know has been happening. However, there is a serious issue with paying them. These companies are having it both ways. They are getting paid by the authorities who are trying to protect people and they are benefiting from the scammers.

I was quite taken aback by some of the information the banks gave us, which is that their communications with the social media companies are the same communications that I can have, or that any member of the public can have. They do not have any direct contact with them when they see scam advertisements. They use the same alert buttons. If I go on to my Facebook page and see a post, I can report the post. That is the access that our main financial institutions have. They explained to us that when they do this, a message usually comes back to say that the advertisement did not breach any of the platform's terms and conditions and so on. Does the Central Bank have a level of engagement with the social media companies that goes beyond that in relation to the issues of their platforming what is a criminal activity at the end of the day?