Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I already aired the more substantive themes relating to company law changes and the changes in proposed consumer legislation in this Bill. I want to finish by raising a concern of the Green Party about the Government seeming to want to ride two horses at the same time with regard to the further progress of the financial service industry here. On one hand with our tax favourable status we seem to want to compete with the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and, God help us, irony of ironies, the Cayman Islands. At the same time we are sending a message, which this Bill seeks to reinforce, in terms of having higher standards of corporate enforcement.

We seem to be sending mixed messages to the movement of global capital that this is a country that will treat their tax status favourably, but we will enforce the highest possible standards in terms of corporate compliance. I am not sure we can do both, but if the Government is confident it can, I wish it well. I am not sure this legislation will establish the confidence that needs to exist, not only internationally but internally in terms of our indigenous financial service companies.

The increases in penalties for white collar crime and fraud in this Bill are welcome. We have seen a trend in recent legislation to improve the levels of prosecutions that might result from the new legislation in terms of company law. Unfortunately, this has not been matched with prosecutions within the courts system. We still have a notorious double standard with regard to people caught for white collar crime and whether they are prosecuted and penalised for it.

This contrasts markedly with the Government's most recent public relations announcements on Operation Anvil and dealing with criminal law in the greater Dublin area. While there is widespread agreement in society that the level of crime needs to be tackled and dealt with promptly, there seems to be a great reluctance to do this among regulatory agencies and authorities which should identify and prosecute those who commit white collar crime. Until there is equivalence in terms of the type of crime being committed and until there are as many people in our prisons or suffering high fines and severe loss of status as a result of defrauding the State as ordinary criminals, our economically unequal society will continue to exist in our criminal and civil codes.

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