Cybercrime is ‘its own pandemic’

The wave of cybercrime that has swept Ireland over the past 20 months had been described as a pandemic within a pandemic by a Cork county councillor.

Speaking at County Hall on Tuesday, Carrigaline Cllr Seamus McGrath called on the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner to enhance the powers of the gardaí in tackling cybercrime such as scam texts, emails and phone calls.

The councillor said the issue was not being given the attention or discussion it deserves and that people, especially the elderly, are now living in fear.

He said the issue is extremely serious and will require international cooperation and “proper expertise” to be put in place to tackle it.

“We have to fight back. It's a tidal wave of scams, fraud and hacking. I think the world needs to step up to this activity. Unfortunately, in the past 20 months we have been dealing with a global pandemic, and in the background, I would argue that this type of activity was its own pandemic,” said Cllr McGrath.

He said the sophistication of scams has now reached a dangerous level and that the increase in activity would suggest that scammers are having significant success.

“Where previously you might get a call from a number with 20 digits and you could make a good guess that it is a scam, now phone calls are coming from national numbers and local numbers,” said the councillor.

He added: “This wouldn't be going on if they weren't having success. I think people are often embarrassed if they are caught by one of these scams and many of them go unreported as a result.”

Cllr McGrath said it is not just an issue for gardaí and the Government, but for the private sector too.

He said: “Private sector has a massive role to play here. Phone companies, tech companies, they absolutely can do more to stamp this out and they're not doing it.”

In support of Cllr McGrath’s motion was West Cork Cllr Joe Carroll who asked why more wasn’t already being done to address the issue of cybercrime.

“This business should be stamped out immediately. These fraudsters are somewhere, they can be found. I don't understand why our security and garda force can't come down on this thing and stamp it out,” said Cllr Carroll.

According to the PwC Irish Economic Crime Survey 2020, which is carried out every two years, 51 per cent of 70 companies which took part in the survey said they had experienced fraud in the past two years.

Carrigaline Cllr Michael Paul Murtagh said people are now terrified to answer their phones and that any increase in physical garda presence should be mirrored in efforts to protect Irish people from cybercrime.