Government’s ‘soft stance’ on white-collar crime criticised

THE Government’s soft stance on corporate crime has been exposed by the failure to provide extra staff to the Director of Corporate Enforcement in recent years, Fine Gael claimed.

The party’s enterprise spokesperson, Leo Varadkar, yesterday accused the Government of repeatedly refusing requests by the director Paul Appleby for more resources between 2005 and 2007.

Mr Varadkar claimed Tuesday’s raid by the ODCE and the Garda fraud squad on Anglo Irish Bank highlighted the Government’s failure to tackle white-collar crime.