TDs, senators, councillors, their family members and associates, including parliamentary assistants and ushers are also considered “politically exposed persons” according to the rules. Photograph: iStock
TDs, senators, councillors, their family members and associates, including parliamentary assistants and ushers are also considered “politically exposed persons” , Fianna Fáil TD and chairman of the Oireachtas Finance Committeesaid that when his children opened credit union accounts as teenagers with proceeds from their part-time jobs, each year they received a request “to explain where they got their money from, that I hadn’t pilfered it or siphoned it off from somewhere”.
They were speaking as the Dáil debated the committee’s report about PEPs, and a 2010 EU directive subsequently transposed into Irish law that subjects politicians and those close to them to additional banking scrutiny to prevent corruption. “No one involved in the House, or indeed in councils, is objecting to a process that will make it all transparent and clear and that will keep us all honest, but this has gone too far,” and “someone has to call stop to the mad bureaucracy involved here”.
“This measure is absolutely disproportionate and unfair and not achieving its purpose,” Ms Connolly said. “There is a complete absence of data on who is doing what and for how long, on the prosecutions and convictions there have been and on whether the measure has achieved its purpose.”highlighted the report’s discussion of the risk of money laundering being facilitated through the misuse of legal entities.