Get dirty on white collar crime

This country has spent an enormous amount of money on exhaustive tribunals of inquiry that behaved as a tightly-closed shop, had no procurement procedures and whose extravagant spending was not subjected to either independent validation or expert oversight.

Compared to other jurisdictions, our authorities demonstrate little capacity to speedily and successfully prosecute white collar crime, although special investigations by the Revenue Commissioners have yielded €43.04m in tax payments from 28 cases connected to the Mahon and Moriarty Tribunals.

The scale of loss, impact on public confidence, the practical consequences of fraud and bribery on the lives of citizens, the effect of fraud, bribery and corruption on the reputation of Ireland as a safe place to conduct business, the underlying complexity and the secrecy that is inherent in corrupt transactions ought to prompt a far more robust and vigorous approach.