White-collar crime - Companies asking for trouble

Irish businesses were blackmailed to the tune of a massive €2 billion last year, because they were afraid to report white-collar crime to gardaí.

A new survey on what it cost Irish business last year may not have mentioned blackmail, but that is effectively what it amounted to.

According to the survey, by accountants RSM Robson Rhodes, in association with Dublin Chamber of Commerce, 80% of the companies were worried about damage to their reputations should the crime become public.

That ill-advised policy led 34% of the companies surveyed to deal with the matter internally. They declined to report the culpable employee and the wrongdoing to the gardaí, which would have been the appropriate approach.

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that white-collar crime prevails to such a huge extent and that almost half of the companies surveyed believe the problem will worsen.

Of course it will, as long as some of the largest companies in the country continue to give immunity from criminal prosecution to those who commit crimes such as fraud and embezzlement.

It is quite obvious that internal disciplinary action, probably very often involving dismissal, is no deterrent to white-collar crime if the gains are sufficiently high enough.

By refusing to report such crime, companies are giving hostage to fortune because while they protect the criminal, they will always be targets.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell was correct when he said the belief that white-collar crime is victimless crime must be dispelled, and that the negative effects of economic crime are suffered by everyone in the State.