Ireland needs to improve anti-corruption measures, report finds

AN international anti-corruption report has highlighted the fact that Ireland places no obligation on public officials to report corruption and keeps no record of the number of officials disciplined for accepting corrupt payments.

The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) also said the introduction of higher fees for using the Freedom of Information Act sent the wrong signal to the public.

“Ireland has a solid framework for dealing with proceeds of corruption and instrumentalities... bearing in mind this generally positive assessment, the evaluation team was of the opinion that there is still room for improvement in particular areas.”

GRECO was set up by the Council of Europe, the 46-member body which is also responsible for the European Curt of Human Rights.

Its evaluation team visited Ireland last March and met representatives of nearly 20 different organisations, including the gardaí, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Revenue Commissioners and the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

In its report, published yesterday, GRECO said the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) work to seize criminal properties through civil court proceedings was particularly impressive.

But GRECO said the seizure statistics were confusing and recommended a new statistical section to analyse the number of seizures and prosecutions relating to corruption.

GRECO referred to the establishment of three tribunals to investigate political and business corruption.

It recommended a centralised system for collecting statistics on the use of disciplinary proceedings and sanctions against corrupt officials.

“The evaluation team could not, in the absence of statistics, assess to what extent disciplinary proceedings/measures against public officials were applied and was told that such information was only available in the departments concerned,” the report stated.

GRECO found that 20% of the companies listed with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) had to be fined, prosecuted or struck off the register for failing to file returns on time.

It said that the office only carried out formalistic checks to see if the information on the identities of the owners was correct.

GRECO recommended that the sanctions for account offences be increased from the current limited fine of €1,900.

The Government will have to present a report on the implementation of GRECO’s recommendations by July next year.