We finally get tough on white collar crime
Beefed-up new body to target high-finance crooks
Robust regulatory framework
AN independent new body with extra powers has finally been set up to tackle white collar crime.
The Corporate Enforcement Authority will replace the much-criticised Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the Cabinet decided yesterday.
Although there have long been calls for tougher action against business and finance crimes, the move is seen as a response to the ODCE’s failure in the Seán FitzPatrick trial, in which the former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank was acquitted.
The office was severely criticised by the trial judge.
A spokesman for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar claimed the new stand-alone agency is a crucial action in the Government’s package of measures to strengthen Ireland’s response to white collar crime. Business Minister Heather Humphreys said: ‘The CEA will be better equipped to investigate increasingly complex breaches of company law. It will have more autonomy, particularly in terms of the ability to recruit specialist skills and expertise.
‘Our goal is to make sure we are doing everything we can when it comes to ensuring a robust regulatory framework for the conduct of business in this country,’ she added. The Bill setting up the CEA will also develop existing provisions to tackle company law breaches.
However, Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy called on Ms Humphreys to publish the full report into the collapse of the FitzPatrick trial, which the State has decided to withhold.
She said: ‘It’s not good enough for Minister Humphreys to refuse to publish the detailed report by Ian Drennan into what went so disastrously wrong within the ODCE that it led to the collapse of what was the longest running criminal trial in Irish history. I simply don’t buy the line that this important report can’t be published in full due to legal considerations.
‘There is an overwhelming case for the Minister to publish the entire 235-page report, with sensitive material redacted.’
She asked how the public could have confidence in the new Corporate Enforcement Authority ‘when we are being kept in the dark about the massive failings of its predecessor agency, the ODCE. Reforming how the State investigates and deals with white collar crime has been little more than a fig-leaf in Fine Gael’s time in office.
‘There should be an independent Anti-Corruption Agency, going much further than the Government’s narrow planned reforms which focus on corporate and economic offences.’
The Standards in Public Office Commission, responsible for elected offices, lobbying regulation and ethics, should be rolled into the new body, she said.
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