Call for existing laws to be enforced

Crime should be tackled by enforcing existing laws and not by introducing new legislation, the Small Firms Association demanded yesterday.

Commenting on its National Small Business Crime Survey, director Patricia Callan said it appears that business crime does not feature on the political agenda.

“Businesses no longer have faith in a system which has a constitutional responsibility to protect them. For too long the emphasis has been placed on the needs of the perpetrator and not the victims of crime.”

Ms Callan said they are critical of the level of convictions obtained and claimed they were lower than other jurisdictions, including Britain.

“Crime is of paramount importance because it costs money, affects health and lowers the quality of life… In addition to the obvious costs of crime such as insurance, there are many hidden costs, including the cost of lost production, administrative costs associated with crime investigation, higher staff turnover, absenteeism, stress, loss of premises, degeneration of business areas, closures and job losses.”

The SFA said the Government and the gardaí must address the concerns of business on the criminal justice system’s ability to deal with the problem.

“Small business is spending billions of euro on security provision and yet the incidence, extent, scope and costs associated with crime are increasing.

“This alone reflects the societal changes which are taking place and why it is so important that crime, its prevention and the manner in which we deal with convicted criminals must change, otherwise our society and businesses are in serious danger.”