Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ireland does not do prosecution of white collar crime. It is not just the collapse of the trial and the acquittal of Seán FitzPatrick, but for decades now we have see that thread. We have seen the underfunding of resources of agencies that are supposed to be tackling white collar crime. We see staff resources being cut, and we see no legislative framework that should underpin a strong, robust, anti-corruption, anti-white collar crime agenda.

My colleague spoke about the request the OCDE made. It was established in 2001 as a result of the tribunals of investigation and the massive corruption that we saw in those tribunals. They spanned three decades yet there was only one conviction for corruption. This is despite the fact that we know that politicians were up to their necks with brown envelopes and despite the fact that we know that people had benefitted in terms of their own lifestyle as a result of backhanders given to people in influential places. The Criminal Assets Bureau did not go in and seize the assets at that time because there is one rule for certain individuals and another rule for others.

When the ODCE was established in 2001 within a number of years the director was requesting resources. The director wrote to Michéal Martin, who was the line Minister at that time in 2005, and continued to write to him over a period of time to tell him that the ODCE was wholly inadequately resourced. Deputy Martin was the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and he refused the request. At a time when tens of thousands of additional public sector workers were being acquitted not one additional staff member was given to the ODCE. Bertie Ahern stood where the Minister is sitting today and said the ODCE needed to wait its turn. At the same time Seán FitzPatrick and his ilk were setting in train the economic disaster that people the length and breadth of this country had to endure over the last ten years.

2 o’clock

It is a symbol of how this country deals with white collar crime. The Fianna Fáil Deputies now tell us that Seánie FitzPatrick should be behind bars and that he caused an absolute catastrophe. A number of years ago, that party was appointing the same Seánie FitzPatrick to the boards of State bodies. The Fianna Fáil leader of the day was out playing golf with him and taking advice from him on economics, sipping wine and sharing dinner. I am really annoyed today because all we are going to do is go through the motions. We have fake outrage about white collar crime from Fianna Fáil, a party that refused to beef up this agency at a time when such action was needed. We have the fake outrage of the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, even though the ODCE has dropped 25% of its staff since Fine Gael came into power in 2011.

This is not the first time the Minister has heard about the shredding of documents and vital information, or if it is, by God, there is something really wrong. We in Leinster House, along with everybody who is clued in, knew about that for quite a while. Was there not a report required at that time? There was no need to wait until the trial collapsed. There was no need to wait to beef up the resources of the ODCE or to have a review of every single agency. That is what happens in modern democracies. That is what happens when people in suits take our economy and ruin our country. The Government should have looked to see what agencies we have. It should have done a review to see if they were fit for purpose and it should have strengthened them and beefed up our legislation. That is not what happened. The Minister says her Government presented the seven additional forensic accountants to the ODCE. Even though that staffing request was made in 2013, they were not appointed until 2015, two years later. The trial was ongoing at that time. We only had one person who could actually forensically analyse data on a computer. It is absolutely mind-boggling. It is like something out of Monty Python. This is how the State deals with white collar crime.

Year after year, I have been challenging both the responsible Minister and the Taoiseach to conduct a complete review of white collar crime agencies in the State. I requested a commission that would examine all our agencies to make sure they were robust enough and, crucially, to overhaul our legislation to make sure we are not only going after the minutiae. These bankers, these people who wrecked our country, should rightly be behind bars. Since we have not made it illegal to do what they have done, they are walking the streets of Dublin and elsewhere with smiles on their faces, able to get on with their lives. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people who were forced to emigrate or are in poverty or have lost their houses are suffering because of this misery. This cannot be allowed to happen time and again.

It is not just me making these points. A senior barrister addressing the Bar Council said that a tin-pot dictator would blush at the type of system we have. In 2012, Mr. Justice Kelly said of the Anglo Irish Bank trial that he was astonished to find there were only 11 gardaí and eight members of the ODCE working on it, the biggest trial in the history of the State. All the warning signs were there. While there can be no forgiveness or excuse for what happened in the ODCE, it is simply wrong to hang that office out to dry. The present Government and Fianna Fáil before it underfunded and under-resourced the fight against white collar crime because some of their own people were up to their necks in it.

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