James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Cahill is unable to attend, but he was down to share time with me.

I have to respond to some of the extraordinary words that were uttered not by the previous Sinn Féin speaker but the one before. The Deputy came in and lectured Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on their roles in the economic crisis, bank guarantee and bank bailout. There were all sorts of anti-European utterances about our role in the European Union. I wish to outline to the Deputy that when I was a child in primary school, Sinn Féin Deputies were in the Dáil praising the bank guarantee. Multiple Sinn Féin Deputies were in the Dáil Chamber, including Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Arthur Morgan - as well as Deputy Pearse Doherty, while he was in the Seanad - giving support to the credit guarantee when it was being outlined and to the early stages of the bail out. The misinformation that was outlined by Deputy Gould when he was in the Chamber some moments ago is extraordinary. I believe he owes the House a more honest account of the role of Sinn Féin.

I will move on now to speak not about constituency issues or anything else but about the matter at hand in the Dáil, which is the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2020. The Government is working on significant legislation in terms of our role to protect ourselves from fraud at European level. We should acknowledge the fact that fraud is estimated to cost €500 million worth of European money. Obviously, that is a staggering amount of money and we should do more on a multilateral basis to deal with that. It requires high levels of co-operation from our Government and across all European levels to police this matter. It is an extraordinarily large amount of money that could be put to exceptionally good use in other areas. It could be used to prevent crime, for example, or to help us to upgrade and invest in cybersecurity, as outlined by the previous speaker. That is an exceptionally important point. I believe our ability to protect ourselves from cybercrime is an area where we are exceptionally vulnerable in Ireland.

We are a prominent nation in terms of international finance and banking. We need to look no further than outside the door today in terms of the companies and multinationals that surround us at the Convention Centre. From my engagement with people in these sectors as a member of the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks it is clear that strong views are being put forward by many people in that sector. They are concerned about the ability of the Government to defend the sectors from cyberattacks. Unfortunately, this can be serious in the impact it can have on the public finances and potential theft. We should strengthen our ability to police against that. This has been outlined by multiple Deputies in the House today.

I wish to put this point across to the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, today while he is with us, because I know this matter falls within his Department. It relates to how we police fraud and theft in Ireland. Fraud and theft are obviously issues we have had down through the years. This has been experienced through multiple Governments and we have to do more. I would like to see Ireland rise in the index in terms of our transparency, which is obviously important.

As a new person getting involved in politics, I often sense among the public a great mistrust of public representatives, of what they stand for or of what they are trying to achieve by going into politics. This applies whether it is delivering for constituencies or working on policy issues that affect everyone in the State. This is an area where members of the public want to see us leading from the front. They want to see a more honest and transparent political system. Our ever-growing role within the European Union is obviously becoming more important. It is growing each year in terms of the integration between nations across the European Union. This is timely legislation. It is time we put our shoulders to the wheel and enacted it.

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