Ireland’s record in combating foreign corruption ‘dire’.
Ireland still has one of the worst records in the world for combating cross-border corruption — with little or no effort being made to prosecute Irish businesses for bribing officials abroad.
According to the OECD, Ireland languishes among the bottom of an international league of countries for enforcing its anti-bribery convention.
In 2003, the Government pledged to tackle bribery by Irish people and companies overseas to win contracts, licences and dodge taxes, as part of the OECD anti-bribery convention.
Out of 41 countries that signed the accord, only the US, Britain, Germany and Switzerland are actively prosecuting companies.
Another six are found to be moderately enforcing the law; while nine are deemed acting in a limited manner.
Ireland is among the bottom-ranking countries alongside Russia, Mexico, and Colombia for failing to prosecute even a single case of foreign bribery.
“Ireland still needs to make substantial progress on key recommendations issued three times since March 2007 by the OECD Working Group on Bribery with regard to improving its domestic criminal law as it applies to bribery by Irish individuals and companies in their international business transactions,” said the OECD yesterday.
“In December 2013, the Working Group urged Ireland to make several changes to its domestic criminal law without delay to rectify three major weaknesses in how foreign bribery is addressed. Ireland is subject to enhanced reporting to the Working Group on account of its failure to address these weaknesses. First, Ireland has failed to act on recommendations to consolidate and harmonise its two foreign bribery offences. Those offences, one in the Prevention of Corruption Act 2001 (as amended) and the other in its Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud) Offences Act 2001, potentially contravene each other and carry substantially different maximum prison sentences – 10 years and 5 years respectively.”
“Secondly, Ireland has failed to act on recommendations to review its law on corporate criminal liability, with a view to modernising and codifying it, so that it can be effectively applied to cases where senior managers of companies use subordinate employees to bribe. Ireland continues to rely on the common law ‘identification’ principle, which the Working Group considers inadequate for the purpose of addressing many of the most frequent bribery methodologies.”
“Thirdly, Ireland has not acted on the Working Group’s recommendation to ensure that its money laundering offence in the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 applies to Irish companies and individuals that launder the proceeds of bribing foreign public officials.”
Earlier this month Tánaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, assured the OECD Working Group that legislation was advancing to strengthen Ireland’s anti-corruption laws.
The OECD said it welcomed this but noted: “The Working Group’s recommendations are pressing, particularly considering that, since Ireland ratified the Convention in 2003, it has not prosecuted even one case of foreign bribery.”
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