White collar crime - Three-month sentence scandalous

CONSIDERING that a Dublin businessman could have got seven years in prison for tax offences, his three-month sentence can only be described as outrageous.

For the second time in as many weeks the perpetrators of white collar crime have got away lightly under a system riddled with inconsistencies. In the latest case, Leslie Reynolds made the largest ever settlement of €9.9 million with the Revenue Commissioners after pleading guilty to 30 counts relating to tax offences.

A fortnight ago stockbroker Stephen Pearson escaped with a two-year jail sentence after defrauding clients of €5.7m, the biggest fraud of its kind in the State’s history. Ironically, Reynolds was described as a decent employer whose only indications of exceptional wealth were a “single fashionable car and two properties in Spain”.

So skewed is the system that had they stolen handbags a prison sentence would be inevitable. It is scandalous.