Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join with Senator Gavan in lending my support to the Leader on the email we have been receiving. I stress the singular "email", although we may have been receiving multiple copies of it. Where would we be without the convenience of being able to copy and paste in the world we live in?

I wish to raise an issue that has no doubt been raised here previously, regarding scam calls and text messages. At this stage, it is time for the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications or the Minister for Justice to come in here to discuss it. I was in my parent's house recently for a very short time and during my visit my mother answered three calls on the landline that were all scam related. I know of somebody who fell for a text message scam in a moment of weakness and lost a small amount of money from a Bank of Ireland account. The transaction showed up on the banking 365 statement as going to another Bank of Ireland account. Today, if we are a suspect in any case, the Garda is able to tell us our every move in the Big-Brother-is-watching world we live in. Every activity on our phone is available and where it emanated from. I have no doubt the telecommunications companies can stop this if they have the wherewithal to do so. The saying is, where there is a will, there is a way. The question is if the will is there. Are the telecommunications companies and service providers making big money from these numbers? Are the numbers what is known as premium numbers? Is there a win for the companies in regard to them? We need to get the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and perhaps also the Minister for Justice to come in here. We must get to the bottom of it. People are wise to it and are probably not falling into the trap as often, but it is not even about falling into the trap and being caught for money. For elderly people living alone, whose landline is their only outlet to the wider world, there can be a sense of joy and almost excitement when it rings and there is a conversation, but when they answer the phone and it is a recorded message or telling them about an Amazon package that is on its way, the only Amazon they know is the river in Brazil.