ODCE ‘must be adequately resourced, free from interference’

Any new version of the Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement will repeat the failures of the current model unless the Government changes the funding and staffing arrangements too, a leading anti-corruption watchdog has warned.

The ODCE — under fire since the collapse of the Seán FitzPatrick trial — is facing two separate probes and calls by numerous Cabinet members and Opposition politicians for it to be disbanded and replaced with a new anti-corruption agency.

But Transparency International Ireland is warning that reforming the body, or replacing it, will not work if sufficient supports are not put in place. Chief executive John Devitt said the Government had to decide whether to maintain the current system where investigating white-collar crime was the responsibility of multiple agencies such as the ODCE, the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Central Bank, and the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, or to amalgamate them.