Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue I am taking this matter on behalf of Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who sends his apologies. It is well-recognised how vital telecommunications are to citizens for so many aspects of their daily lives, including remote working, studying and staying in touch with family members. These services have proved essential since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions imposed nationally. They will continue provide critical support in accelerating digitalisation and part of economic recovery from the pandemic. I am aware of phone customers in Ireland recently experiencing an escalated level of such nuisance scam calls. They can cause considerable distress and anxiety, in addition to causing some customers to incur some additional charges. It is very serious. The Deputy mentioned one of his constituents who lost €1,000. The increased frequency and volume of fraudulent attacks over electronic communication networks includes both "smishing", or SMS phishing and "vishing", or voice or VoIP phishing. Fraudulent texts masquerade as texts from banks and smishing frauds are targeted at deploying malware. The phishing activities recently reported are spoof calls, and-or phishing, particularly where numbers appear to be from the HSE or other public bodies.

Several State bodies and agencies, including An Garda Síochána, Revenue and the Department of Social Protection, and other sectors, such as financial institutions, and, indeed, the mobile network operators, have run public awareness campaigns to warn their customers about smishing, phishing and the need to remain continually on alert in assessing and reviewing suspicious messages. The National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, additionally publishes comprehensive advisories and alerts on scams, attacks, or vulnerabilities, engaging users and the public through its website and social media feeds.

The telecommunications regulator, ComReg, has also advised that it has published a consumer information notice on its website which provides advice urging vigilance at all times on the part of consumers and lists suggestions for the proactive steps to be taken by those receiving scam calls.

However, fraudulent activity, such as smishing and vishing, is generally not a telecoms network security or resilience issue as it is part of the traffic transiting the networks which generally does not cause any network operational issues. Where fraudulent activity becomes an operational issue on the network, such as leading to an overload on the SMS system for example, this impacts on the security and resilience of the telecoms networks and ComReg will have a role to play. The fraudulent traffic from criminals that can be carried out on the networks, such as for smishing and vishing, and the investigation of such criminal activities, remain strictly within the remit of An Garda Síochána. However, as the impact of fraudulent activities is complex in nature, no one agency can address the full scope of the impact and, as such, it requires a multi-agency approach.

There is no single technical or other solution to the problem of scam calls, but through the co-operation of State bodies and a continuing raising of public awareness, and I thank the Deputy for using this opportunity to generate public awareness on this issue, it is hoped fewer people will fall victim to this activity. The more public awareness we and relevant State agencies can generate to ensure people are vigilant to what is going on, the better.

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