Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What the Minister of State is saying is correct. This was brought to my attention. Just last week, it was discovered that 76,000 websites had been set up by a network of criminals based in China. The websites were marked as official sites of well-known brands, many of which have a well-established customer base in Ireland.

Experts are now calling it one of the biggest online scams ever. Up to 800,000 people, mostly in Europe, were tricked into providing personal and financial information to these bogus sites run by criminals. While An Garda Síochána is not as yet aware of any Irish citizens impacted by the scam, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Irish people have fallen victim to this or a similar highly-sophisticated scam. What is being done to protect the citizens from these sophisticated scams, which are not easily identified as scams and, therefore, may trick a large number of people? I know the Government is working with An Garda Síochána but what is happening is mind-boggling. This is really worrying. As the Minister of State said, it affects everyone. What else can we do?

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