Politicians warned not to be complacent about corruption

THE chairman of the Oireachtas watchdog on ethics said yesterday that Ireland’s record on corruption in public office left “no room for complacency”.

High Court judge Matthew Smith said that he was satisfied that we do not have a major problem with corruption. However, he warned the latest Transparency International corruption index still showed that we were perceived “as being more corrupt than a number of member countries of the EU and, indeed, others who are our trade competitors”.

His introduction to the annual report of the Standards in Public Office Commission for 2003 intimated that the trustworthiness of our political leaders was a major issue.