Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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43. To ask the Minister for Finance if he is concerned about the impact of financial services-related ‘SMS scams’ on financial services customers; if his Department is in favour of a blanket SMS ‘scam filter’ approach to dealing with this issue of fraud of this nature; if he will outline any engagement his Department has had on the matter with the relevant Government Department and ComReg; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28128/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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My officials are undertaking a number of actions in the effort to fight payment fraud, at both the national and EU level and are also supportive of recent actions taken by ComReg to develop a SMS Sender ID Registry.

My Department has engaged extensively with both the Department of the Environment, Climate, and Communications and ComReg while working on drafting the National Payments Strategy, which was launched in October of last year.

One of the future outcomes identified by the national payments strategy is to reduce the vulnerability of consumers to fraud perpetrated via telecommunications channels such as SMS messages. In order to achieve this future outcome, the national payments strategy recommends two key actions.

Firstly, all Government departments and bodies under their aegis are to apply for inclusion on ComReg’s “do not originate” list for any phone numbers which aren’t used for outbound communications and the SMS SenderID Registry for any for any alphanumeric SMS headers that are used in Government and public sector communications.

Secondly, the Department of Environment, Climate, and Communications and the Commission for Communications Regulations has committed to exploring and evaluating interventions which can help tackle the issue of SMS scams.

Discussion of a blanket SMS ‘scam filter’ is a policy matter for my colleague the Minister for Environment, Climate, and Communications. However, following a formal decision published in April 2024 ComReg is developing an SMS Sender ID Registry (the Registry) to prevent text scams and to protect the SMS channel as a reliable and trustworthy communications channel. The Registry is a secure repository of:

• registered SMS Sender IDs,
• registered Sender ID Owners (SIDOs).
• Participating Mobile Service Providers (MSPs) and,
• Participating Aggregators (PAs).