Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his contribution. The Labour Party broadly welcomes this Bill.

I am going to illustrate the impact of white-collar crime with a story. I used to teach in an area of acute disadvantage in the north inner city of Dublin. Whenever I told anybody where I used to teach, they used to always make quips, comments or jokes about crime, despite the fact that I was teaching children. There would always be a joke, snide remark or comment about crime somewhere in the conversation when I mentioned where I used to teach. I recall once that I was trying to arrange a primary school football match against another school and I rang the school as we were trying to organise the game. The guy on the other end said, in a joking way, that he was quite sure that my school’s girls would be good at football because they spend half of their time running away from burning and stolen cars. I kept this to myself, did not challenge him on it, and I was quite happy the next week when we did actually beat the lard out of his side.

The point was that there always seemed to be a sense that our children needed to be fixed and that there was an air of criminality about the area in which they lived. The adjoining area to where we used to work was the International Financial Services Centre, IFSC, and it was a case of if only our children could be a bit more like them, like those functional members of society who were working hard in these financial institutions. If only our children could aspire to, be more like, speak like and dress like that, that would be better. This was at the height of the Celtic tiger where there were movers and shakers and big moneyed people. That was the kind of sense we used to get in that there was one type of criminality that people used to joke about and refer to but the IFSC was somewhere to which we should really aspire to have our children end up working or be part of.

Lo and behold, a number of years later the malpractice, lies, shoddy deals and the criminality that took place in the IFSC almost brought down the entire State. That is the story of my little school and of what society thinks of those children and what the air and atmosphere of the country was in which they grew up.

We do not really think that white-collar criminality is the same. If one walks into any courtroom in the country one will find people generally from a particular socioeconomic background. They are disproportionately affected by addiction issues, housing issues and other issues of social concern. One does not see the type of people who have been so close to events and decisions that almost brought down the State in the dock as often as they should be. I am not saying that people should automatically make snide or derogatory comments about people in different professions like they did about the children I used to teach, but it is important to speak in this Chamber about the effect this type of inequality has on young lives and how young people feel. We are encouraging young people throughout the country to believe in the system and in this Republic, to engage in the political process and to believe the State will have their backs at the end of the day and that people are not out to get them and they respect them but, fundamentally, if we do not have as tough a regime for white-collar crime as for any other type of crime, people will not believe it. They will believe, inevitably, that they should perhaps engage in a parallel economy because they are not going to get respect anyway.

We are broadly in favour of this Bill but, as ever, we have to be vigilant to ensure that companies do not dodge the legislation and also to ensure that investigating bodies do not get too cosy with their industries as they use these powers to pursue them actively. The powers include the ability to fine companies a maximum of €10 million or 10% of total worldwide turnover for breaches of competition law. This comes on foot of the failure to prosecute any insurers after a five-year investigation into price fixing, which ended in just commitments from insurers. A spokesperson for the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission said the commission is in no way giving the insurance industry a clean bill of health. It has written to the Central Bank to outline broader cultural concerns in the industry which have come to light during the course of the investigation.

The Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg, has welcomed the Bill. There are a number of suggestions from McCann FitzGerald. The law firm said that violations will be easier to prove and fines will be higher, but enforcement will remain challenging. It stated:

A new and untested enforcement process, termed “administrative proceedings” in the Bill, is a significant departure for Irish law.  So-called adjudication officers, nominated by the CCPC and approved by the Minister, and paid “per diem, per piece or periodically”, will effectively determine liability for breaches, may issue “prohibition notices” (effectively cease and desist orders), and may order divestment or other structural remedies.

Another issue it cites is that the merger control reforms will increase uncertainty, stating:

New gun-jumping prohibitions, mandatory information requests for third parties, and CCPC powers to intervene and review below-threshold deals are proposed.  Notably, the CCPC will be able to require parties to notify any deal, no matter its size, if the CCPC believes it “may ... have an effect on competition”. The CCPC will also have powers to require businesses to unwind certain completed mergers, if the CCPC believes the deal may harm competition.

The Bill proposes to transpose EU Directive 2019/1 of the European Parliament and of the Council, also known as the ECN+ directive. The purpose of the directive is to empower the competition authorities of the member states to be more effective enforcers and to ensure the proper functioning of the Internal Market. This transposition includes granting further powers to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Commission for Communications Regulation. The powers include the ability to levy administrative financial sanctions for breaches of competition law obligations, which will be set at a maximum of €10 million or 10% of total worldwide turnover. As the Minister of State said, the Bill proposes to make some amendments to Irish competition law, which include a specific offence of bid-rigging with regard to certain anti-competitive practices in bidding and tendering processes, the prosecution of gun-jumping offences and the unwinding of certain mergers after they have been implemented, and to provide for targeted surveillance powers in investigations for certain criminal offences.

Broadly, we support the Bill. We will do our best to assist the Minister of State and the Government to strengthen it in any way we can. The Minister of State mentioned that he will be proposing amendments on Committee and Report Stages and we will be as constructive as possible. However, it would give the children I spoke about earlier more confidence in the State and the governance of the State if initiatives or legislation such as this did not arise because of an EU directive but from the deep sense of injustice that the Government should feel when it comes to tackling white-collar crime. I told the story not in any way to diminish the area in which I taught but because it is important for people to understand the profound effects that a stench of inequality has on a person, the person's family and the person's community. When one tries to say to anybody that he or she needs to be more like other people, one is giving the other people a free rein that they do not deserve. They must have the same responsibilities under the law and the same consequences for criminal behaviour.

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