Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on an issue of great importance at a time when our country is in such a difficult situation. Overall I welcome the Bill in the sense that it seems likely to encourage people to do the right thing and to discourage them from doing the wrong thing. I am a strong advocate of making it easy for people to do the right thing. Our country has been plagued by rumours of backhanders, brown envelopes and political favours. We are all agreed that the era of political favours, asking and giving, must be put to an end. Politics can no longer be conducted in that way. This Bill is a welcome attempt to deal with those types of crime. However, we must be sure it goes far enough to stamp out such practices. We must ensure the failures of the past are never allowed to recur.

Legislative measures must be ramped up in order to stamp out white collar crime. The Government must go that bit further. Specifically, we need a commitment to introduce legislation relating to whistleblowers. That should have been brought forward at the same time as, or perhaps even before, this Bill. There is an urgent need for protection for workers who come forward to report corporate misconduct. By introducing such legislation the number of white collar crime prosecutions will rise, which will send a clear signal that it is no longer acceptable. That needs to be done now.

I welcome the announcement of the Minister with responsibility for public expenditure and reform, Deputy Howlin, last Thursday that such legislation will be put in place by the end of the year. Speaking at the launch of Transparency International's Speak Up helpline he said:

We are going to have an over-arching right for individuals in both the public sector and the private sector to complain to the authorities and lay out their allegations of wrongdoing, without putting themselves at risk or without exposing themselves.

I look forward to holding the Government to account on this promise. Like my colleague, Deputy Jonathan O'Brien, I call on the Government to implement a timetable of preventative measures in respect of white collar crime. The Government must introduce liability for corruption offences, corruption immunity or a leniency programme for certain witnesses who are also accomplices to offences, and comprehensive corporate liability. Companies investigated for white collar crime must clearly show they have preventative anti-bribery mechanisms in place and this must be taken into account in assessing liability and sentencing.

The Government must offer a firm commitment that there will be adequate resourcing for the Garda and regulatory agencies in order to investigate and detect offences. However, this has been put into question by recent statements from the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors that there are insufficient officers in the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation to tackle white collar crime. In addition, there should be clear sentencing guidelines for the Judiciary in regard to corruption-related offences. We should not have a situation where thieves in tracksuits go to prison while those in suits go home unpunished. Sinn Féin has called for the use of socio-economic victim impact statements and relevant expert analysis in courts.

The concept of what is illegal is different from the concept of what is wrong, and these need to be brought closer together. I listened with great interest to Deputy Peter Mathews who, as usual, made a well balanced contribution to the debate on this legislation two weeks ago in pointing out that what the public universally views as being wrong is not necessarily an offence in law. That puzzles and disturbs many people. For example, the public cannot understand why a financial institution can apparently transfer on a short-term, almost overnight, basis, either €78 million or €87 million - the figures are nearly immaterial at this stage - to another institution in order to mislead the public into thinking that the second host institution is in a stronger financial position than it actually is. The public is puzzled by this and the public would say - and I agree - that those who colluded in the transfer of that money, those who colluded in the receipt of the money, and the auditors who signed off the books for both institutions did the taxpayers of this country and this economy a grievous wrong. That action should have been unquestionably illegal. Yet, as I understand it, some of those people are currently receiving public funds for their work with the National Asset Management Agency. Is it any wonder the public needs reassurance that the Government is taking seriously the corruption of white collar crime?

The public needs to see that when wrong is done and when taxpayers' money is plundered or abused in such a way that there is a clear legal recourse for Government. Unfortunately, this Bill does not introduce the clarity that is needed in this regard and which is required without delay. Only the people can hold their leaders to account but they are generally ill equipped to do so. Instead they depend on regulatory agencies, the Department of Justice and Equality, the Garda and so on to do it for them. We must ensure the people are part of the fight against white collar crime. Our first step in that regard is to ensure there is a closer alignment in law of what is wrong and what is illegal.

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