David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Thank you very much.

People have complained for a very long time that nobody goes to jail, loses his or her job or has to pay a fine for white-collar crime. The Bill will ensure that at least some of them may face this prospect. It was a long time coming. The general scheme of the Bill was introduced in 2012. What has happened in the past six years? It is updating legislation which goes from 1889 up to 2010. As I said, there was a very long gestation period.

There is also an interesting ancestry for the Bill, which includes the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OECD and, of course, the lamentable Mahon tribunal which went for years and cost millions of pounds. I will not rehearse what is in the Bill because I am sure the Minister either has done so or will do so. I will just refer to a few of the elements of it because the intention of the Bill is to register the fact that this kind of corruption leads to serious social and economic damage to the fabric of the State. For this reason, a sentence of up to ten years is provided for as well as unlimited fines, and I say hear, hear to that. I would like to see this happen because the people involved in this usually have the acumen and material capacity to hire the best lawyers in the State and wriggle their way out of it. The Bill provides for a penalty of forfeiture of office if an Irish official is found guilty of corruption on indictment. Again, I say hear, hear to that. However, the extraordinary thing is that Members of Seanad Éireann or Dáil Éireann get away scot-free. They are not subject to this penalty. This is a nonsense. I know there may be some twiddling difficulties with it, but let us twiddle and tweak it, even if a referendum is necessary because if anybody should go to jail or be fined for this, it is public representatives. They are the people who should be least susceptible to corruption. I ask the Minister to consider extending the Bill to cover Members of Seanad Éireann and Dáil Éireann. After all, we are excluded from various jobs. We are excluded from sitting on certain committees and we are not allowed to do this, that and the other and yet we cannot get a go to jail card. Why not? I would like to quote the Minister's own words in Dáil Éireann last year. He said, "I believe that Members of this House understand that it is only by holding ourselves up to the highest standards, that we can tackle corruption and white-collar crime effectively and maintain or improve the trust, respect and support of the Irish public", but this Bill does not do that. I said I was not going to disagree with the Minister but I could not resist the temptation because this is a fundamentally important step.

One other thing to be welcomed is that we will, more or less, be waving tatty bye to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. That is a damn good thing because it was useless. I remember hearing the director of corporate enforcement say there was nothing wrong and that we would have a soft landing. It was utter, complete and total balderdash. He was not up to the job. The office has been severely criticised because in addition to this rubbish which went on in the lead up to, and during, the crisis, it utterly failed in the prosecution of Seán FitzPatrick. It made an total, complete and utter bags of prosecuting Seán FitzPatrick and it was criticised by the judge in the case.

There is a new offence of trading in influence and that prohibits the promising of an undue advantage to an official. There is also the crime of an applicant for planning permission makes a payment. This is something that has really vitiated the situation at local authority level. I must say I am rather naïve and I was utterly shocked at the level of local authority corruption that was revealed.

The other good thing that will happen is that companies and public bodies will have to develop anti-corruption policies, roll them out and give training to their employees. It astonishes me that the average employee or company director would not recognise corruption when it faced him or her. I certainly would but perhaps that is part of the religious background of being an Anglican.

I welcome this Bill. It is a good day for Ireland as it is about bloody time that we got it. I will wait to see it being implemented and I will be there to applaud when the first company director, official or whoever it is, or if the Bill is amended in the way I would like to see it amended, the first Member of Dáil Éireann or Seanad Éireann, is on his or her way to the clink. I say well done to the Minister as it is about time. He is the one who has done this, so he gets the full credit. This will help to improve standards in Irish life.