Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has today stated his support for a Sinn F\u00e9in Bill which will make lying to the Central Bank a criminal offence.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said tackling white collar crime, and specifically putting in place jail sentences for bankers and others who lie to the Central Bank, is long overdue.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor far too long this State has refused to hold white-collar criminals to account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unscrupulous actions of banks and bankers, who were bailed out by Fianna F\u00e1il, Labour and Fine Gael Governments, brought this country to its financial knees. Tens of billions of tax payers\u2019 money was wrongly used to bail out failing banks, gambling speculators, and these white-collar criminals, who have never been held to account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis impunity has emboldened the banking elites, and this can be seen in the ongoing tracker mortgage scandal.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp to 33,000 families with tracker mortgages have had money stolen from them by the banks.\u00a0 Up to 100 individuals and families have lost their home. Countless numbers have suffered hardship or the breakdown of relationships because of it. We have no idea how many took their own lives because of the pressure they were under and faced with losing their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet not one person has been held responsible and no banker will ever be held responsible under the current system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cAs it currently stands bankers can lie through their teeth to the Central Bank time and again, provide misleading information and omit documents, and the Central Bank can do absolutely nothing. That has to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Bill will make lying to the Central Bank a criminal offence with a possible penalty of five years in jail or a fine of up to \u20ac250,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cTackling white collar crime, and specifically putting in place jail sentences for bankers and others who lie to the Central Bank, is long overdue. Voluntary codes do not work.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently there are 350 social welfare inspectors to investigate fraud. Yet, in the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement there are only 35 staff members to investigate white collar crime. These statistics say it all.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has today stated his support for a Sinn F\u00e9in Bill which will make lying to the Central Bank a criminal offence. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said tackling white collar crime, and specifically putting in place jail sentences for bankers and others who lie to the Central Bank, is long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banks","category-central-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3355,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/3355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}