Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Since 2019, there has been a massive increase in fraudulent scams. I doubt there is a household in the country that has not been targeted. I have been raising this issue now for well over a year, but the Government has taken no action to address this threat. I do not understand why it is not acting on this.

Figures released today show that there was a 26% jump in fraudulent scams in the first half of last year, with victims scammed out of €8.6 million in the first six months. The Government still does not have a multi-annual strategy to deal with financial fraud. It was a key recommendation of the Hamilton report, a Government report produced three years ago. The Government still has not allowed the banks to have a shared fraud database to tackle fraudsters and protect consumers. The banks have been demanding that the Government allow this so they can share live information with the Garda regarding fraud. It is bonkers that we do not have that, and that legislation has not come from the Department of Justice in that regard. Despite the fact that other jurisdictions have taken action to sanction online platforms that host fraudulent content scams, there has been no action here whatsoever.

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