I am delighted to welcome to the meeting Mr. John Devitt, acting chief executive of Transparency International Ireland, and Mr. David Murray. We have circulated briefing material, including Transparency International Ireland's 2003 annual report, its submission to Development Cooperation Ireland's White Paper on Overseas Development Assistance and its paper entitled, Seven Initiatives to Combat Corruption in Development. The issue of corruption in development is important and has been to the forefront of Ireland's ongoing development programme. While the matter cannot be resolved comprehensively in the immediate future, international efforts to promote good governance and democratic accountability in developing countries have led to improvements in many developing countries. DCI has consistently supported anti-corruption programmes in its partner countries. Members have been provided with a note which sets out details of some of those programmes which are essential if we are to maintain confidence in the distribution of public money in these countries. I ask Mr. Devitt to make a brief presentation which will be followed by questions from members.
Overseas Development Aid: Presentation.
Mr. John Devitt
I thank you, Chairman, and the members of the committee for affording us the opportunity to present our recommendations on the White Paper consultations on the future of development policy. I congratulate the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs for engaging the public and civil society in developing a coherent policy and policy framework for the future of development policy in Ireland. As part of this process, TI Ireland has submitted its recommendations based upon the need for coherent policy and technical capacity in the area of anti-corruption and governance.
TI Ireland's campaign against corruption in public life and international business is based on first hand experience and observation of the impact which systemic abuse of entrusted power has on the world's poorest people.
Corruption is now clearly linked to the destabilisation of democratic government, weak trade and investment, environmental damage and the abuse of human rights. While it is certainly not confined to the world's poorest countries, corruption hurts the poor most. It acts as a regressive tax, with small businesses and those on low incomes most prone to demands for bribes from corrupt police and other public servants. The harm done by such petty corruption is compounded by the grand corruption engaged in by world leaders and senior government officials and supported by big business and facilitated by lawyers, accountants and bankers in developed countries.
The figures are shocking. The World Bank calculates that $1 trillion is paid in bribes and a similar amount laundered around the world every year. The African Union estimates that $150 billion is currently lost to Africans annually; much of which is embezzled through financial centres of North America and Europe. It is estimated that up to $40 billion is laundered every year through the City of London alone. In a world where 3.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day, the injustice is clear.
There is now irrefutable evidence that such a missallocation of resources poses a major barrier to the achievement of the millennium development goals. The link between poverty and corruption has also been recognised by the Commission for Africa's 2005 report which states: "Good governance is the key ... Unless there are improvements in capacity, accountability, and reducing corruption ... other reforms will have only limited impact."
Until recently, corruption was regarded as taboo in international development circles; the word was often deleted from official documents. During the past 15 years, however, the movement against corruption has gathered pace. The work of civil society organisations such as Transparency International, TI, and international organisations such as the UN and World Bank Institute has propelled the topic into polite discussion in government and corporate circles.
Public pressure arising from public awareness has led to concerted action from governments, business and civil society. International conventions have been drafted and implemented to prevent the bribery of foreign public officials. International standards have been adopted to prevent the laundering of corrupt assets. A growing number of businesses are implementing relevant codes and compliance programmes. The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, has led the campaign to open oil and mineral revenues to public scrutiny through the extractive industries transparency initiative. The African Union has also launched an important initiative to monitor progress on good governance through the African peer review mechanism.
Meanwhile Transparency International is leading civil society action across 112 countries to prevent corruption and international organisations such as the OECD, UN and the World Bank are lending support and technical assistance to grassroots and top-down programmes to enhance governance worldwide.
Poor countries increasingly recognise the link between corruption and poverty. Some 90% of the 34 countries that had produced a full poverty reduction strategy paper, PRSP, addressed the issue of corruption in their strategies as of 2004. Only six out of a total of 54 countries made no mention of it in their PRSP.
The Irish public also sees corruption as a leading cause of poverty in the developing world. According to the 2001 Ireland Aid report, Attitudes Towards Development Cooperation in Ireland, 92% of respondents cite corruption as either a very important or fairly important reason that developing countries are poor. Public support for the global fight against corruption is in no doubt. The international and national systems to deal with the problem are now taking shape. Ireland must now assume its responsibilities to help maintain the momentum for change.
I will now outline our submission on the White Paper. Ireland needs to take a leading role in the global campaign against corruption. To do this, the Government must develop an official policy on corruption in development and dedicate the resources needed to see this through.
The Government is already spending too much on enhancing governance in its partner countries not to match this spending with coherent policy. With almost 10% of Ireland's development spend allocated to good governance programmes annually, greater attention will be needed to develop policy coherence and technical capacity to properly coordinate and monitor the effectiveness of this spending in preventing corruption. Corruption must be explicitly mentioned as a development issue, as it was in a recent Norwegian White Paper. Future policy should highlight at a project and programme level the role donors must play in actively preventing corruption through appropriate rules and regulation at aid agency level. Support for anti-corruption programmes and tools, through multilateral frameworks, civil society and national governments, is equally important.
A coherent policy cannot be created in isolation. Development Cooperation Ireland, DCI, must work with other donors, relevant Departments and civil society at home in formulating policy on governance and corruption. It should also take a proactive role in promoting international conventions and Irish law on bribery and money laundering in Government, business and civil society.
To implement this policy, Ireland must develop the technical and analytical expertise in anti-corruption and governance across Government and State agencies. Ireland should join the Utstein Partnership in an effort to further its capacity to contribute to multilateral development assistance policies and programmes, particularly on corruption.
Transparency International Ireland will offer support to DCI and other State agencies at home and overseas through a programme of capacity building, research, public awareness and education. Ireland's membership of the Utstein Partnership will be complemented by executive training geared to assisting development, diplomatic trade and investment promotions staff, both in the public and private sector, to design and implement strategies to prevent and deal with corruption overseas. Work has already begun on the design of this programme in collaboration with a leading Irish third level institution.
Transparency International Ireland is also advising on the design of a global online information system and expert helpdesk for businesses operating in weak governance zones. A pilot programme should be launched by a European development agency in 2006. A national integrity system, NIS, country study will be published in 2006, providing an assessment of how well Ireland's public institutions, laws and regulations are geared to prevent corruption in Ireland. As with all NIS country studies, the Irish assessment will help to paint a global picture of best practice in government and law making.
A great deal of work is already under way, both at home through bodies such as TI Ireland and abroad with the Utstein Partnership to complement and support policy and expertise development within DCI. We hope this work will be complemented with the necessary political will and resources. TI Ireland looks forward to offering any further support or advice it is called upon to provide by this sub-committee and Development Cooperation Ireland.
I thank Mr. Devitt for making the presentation.
I thank Mr. Devitt for his clear presentation. My question relates to the estimated $40 billion laundered through the City of London each year. Does Mr. Devitt believe the level of business being generated through the banking system in the United Kingdom means its state institutions are turning a blind eye to what is a massive illegal operation? Is there the political will to deal with the significant level of business being generated in the banking system?
Mr. David Murray
This is one of the subjects high on the agenda of Transparency International in the United Kingdom. The UK government has taken some action, and Chancellor Gordon Browne has promoted work in connection with the financial action taskforce committee recommendations. Our view is that considerably more energy is needed around the City of London to deal with the big fish. The regulatory system causes inconvenience to people handling small amounts of money while the larger amounts manage to slip through the net. We believe greater attention is needed in this area. It would be unfair to say the British Government is not treating it with any degree of urgency, but a great deal more needs to be done.
Has Mr. Murray examples of the success of the British Government in its drive against this massive financial embezzlement from the poorest of the poor? Is this being done by the embassies of these countries and is the issue of diplomatic immunity hindering investigations by the State?
Mr. Murray
On the first matter, I am not aware of any major success in the recent past. One of the big cases involves the Abacha money from Nigeria. It is proceeding at a pace that could well do with some acceleration. However, there is still a very long way to go. Switzerland has been more successful than other countries in handling that case.
I am sorry, what was the second part of the question?
It was related to embassies and whether there was any evidence.
Mr. Murray
I would not like to say I have any evidence. I suspect the Deputy has hit one of the nails on the head. One of the key issues is the question of mutual legal assistance across boundaries. There is need — this does not apply only to the United Kingdom but to all developed world countries — to put greater resources into providing effective mutual legal assistance in order that when a developing world institution, for example an anti-corruption commission, asks for support, it can be given in a timely manner. The queue of applications tends to be rather long, the principal reason in most countries being that there are simply not the resources to handle all of them.
The pre-accession countries, Bulgaria and Romania, are due to enter the European Union in 2007. Romania, in particular, has been the recipient of foreign aid over a period of time. What level of concern is there in Transparency International Ireland regarding allegations which have not been proved of money-laundering and irregular transactions involving state institutions in Bulgaria? What is the organisation's opinion on the comments made by the group dealing with the accession of Romania to the European Union regarding its concerns about high levels of corruption and bribery in that country?
Mr. Devitt
I am not overly familiar with the situation in Romania or Bulgaria. Our concern is that, having gone through a monitoring process, a process of reporting to Brussels, having ticked the boxes as it were, the attention will be taken off reforms and combating problems in Romania and other accession countries. There does not appear to be a framework for dealing with problems after they join the European Union. There is no internal monitoring mechanism for dealing with the problem of corruption at EU level. Within the Council of Europe there is GRECO, the anti-corruption centre. There is some monitoring of the OECD convention throughout northern Europe, but beyond that there is no monitoring mechanism at EU level of which I am aware. I am not sure whether Mr. Murray has any more comments to make on this.
Mr. Murray
I must qualify what I say by saying that up to approximately five years ago I spent quite an amount of time working on the central and eastern European region. However, I am slightly rusty on it now, having moved away from it as a priority area. Certainly, in the early days of transition during the 1990s there was a ready acceptance within all of the transition countries within central and eastern Europe that corruption was a major issue to be challenged and that energy was needed to get behind it. I seem to detect — this is a personal and anecdotal perception rather than structured research — that there is now more reluctance to accept comments from the outside. On a number of occasions I have been told that people in the developed world should sort out their own problems first. It seems there is still a problem and it is a very serious one. The countries concerned would prefer to deal with their problems internally but are not, perhaps, putting the energy into it that they might. However, as I said, that is not a researched but a personal impression response.
I apologise for leaving, but I must be in the Dáil Chamber at 10.30 a.m.
I welcome the representatives of Transparency International. I also very much welcome the discussion, analysis and debate on corruption, on which I have a few points to make. First, if this discussion, analysis and debate within the developed world are to be effective, they must be perceived to be even-handed. It is very important to avoid the suggestion there are undeveloped and developing countries with cultures where corruption is endemic when it is very clear that those who have been most guilty are those involved in extractive industries such as the oil industry, most of them associated with natural resources. There are two sides to every corrupt relationship and what seems to be slipping out of the analysis is the fact that these relationships are sustained with a culture of bribes from the corporate sector.
I supported the international guidelines and standards for the corporate world, the self-imposed moral suasion types of guidelines. However, they are not totally effective. Something more is needed. In that regard, this committee should explicitly call on the Government to ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption which will come into effect on 14 December, 90 days following the deposit of the necessary ratifications which, when I last checked, numbered 33. The number of ratifications required for entry into force differs between measures. The UN Convention against Corruption is at the lower end of the scale with 30 ratifications being required.
It is interesting — it illustrates the point I make about the necessity to demonstrate good faith on this issue — that only two countries in the European Union, France and Hungary, have ratified the convention. It is interesting also that some of the countries that have spoken most often about corruption are showing no energy in preparing for ratification. This is disappointing and illustrates that the debate about corruption and the willingness to deal with it is not even-handed. It is extremely dangerous to structure the debate as if it were primarily located in the countries receiving development assistance. I am not suggesting Transparency International does this. I have read its material. This is not a criticism. It is dealing with the general topic.
I have another problem that is based on my academic background to some extent and it is one we can discuss again. It is about the construction of the international corruption barometer using a number of sources, sometimes up to eight. Sometimes countries have been looked at from the point of view of 12 consultations. We need to be very careful about some of the sources, one of which, Freedom House, has a particular view of the corporate world internationally and of international economics. The Economist Intelligence Unit is variable in relation to the objectivity of its analyses. The sources for the construction of the barometer, therefore, need great care. I am supportive of the efforts of Transparency International in all of its chapters. I would like to see the issue considered constructively. It is very interesting to note the reliance on the OECD which — and this is not especially a criticism of TI — is not a research institution. The OECD is a collaborative institution which produces for Governments more or less what they want to hear. There is a research-based, refereed alternative available in, for example, the detailed analysis of the Russian transition. There is a discrepancy between increasing oil sales by Russia and per capita income. While Russia has a great deal of oil, the people are still poor, which tells one something about the location benefits of the Russian oil industry. The same is true in Nigeria where a massive expansion in production has been accompanied by a fall of a number of places on the UNDP table. These realities underline the point that one cannot, except with great danger, address the issue as if it were primarily one of the cultures of those countries in receipt of development aid, those seeking better trade and those seeking debt relief.
I have been concerned that in the last year especially there have been a number of discussions directed at countries in need of debt relief, the cases of which have been damaged not only by obvious corruption but also by the excessive statement of the case. In my examination of the proportion spent on debt of gross domestic product and the way money has been spent on education and health in a number of African states I noted a very satisfactory improvement in the functioning of debt relief, especially in the contemporary period. While this is not to argue that there is not a case for good governance, there is also an extension of the sovereignty argument to consider, whereby people say they are perfectly capable of looking after things themselves. Given that only two member states of 25 in the European Union and none of the major economies of the world have signed the UN convention on the elimination of corruption, the good faith of governments is suspect in dealing with those upon whom wishes to insist on a regime. While I am in favour of good governance, I am also in favour of reform of governments in the western world. Speaking recently, I used the example of comparing the blatant corruption which took place in African regimes with Enron. Some African countries would struggle for a long time to reach a level of corruption of the order of Enron's. In the case of Enron, one must consider the damage done to the corporate world, ethics internationally and white poor people in the richest country in the world where I have lived, worked and taught. It was appalling. To retain credibility, one needs to be balanced and to rely on impeccable and wide sources. One's approach must be research based which, it is correct to point out, requires resources. Resources must be provided internationally, which requires commitment.
As he informed me last week, the Minister for Foreign Affairs has written to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to ask him to prepare the legislation to ratify the UN convention on the elimination of corruption. We have a norm whereby we prepare domestic legislation before ratification of an international convention, which is not followed in all countries. I am not so sure it is an indication of good faith that we adopt this approach. I am not sure either what stage preparations are at in the United Kingdom. My sources and preliminary consultations indicate that a number of the significant economies in the European Union have no intention of ratifying the UN convention in the short term. Interestingly, they will say a voluntary code is good enough for the developed world whereas a mandatory code is necessary for the undeveloped world. Mr. Murray will know what kind of answer one would get were one to put this proposition to Africa.
Another matter of interest is the debate in development discourse on technology transfer which was current in the 1970s and 1980s but which collapsed in the 1990s. A number of us who were working on the theoretical aspects of development from the end of the 1960s through the 1970s were interested in technology transfer as a component of the debate. We always made the case that as over 80% of people in rural areas were involved in agriculture, it made sense to transfer appropriate technology at the lower end of the scale rather than to engage in grandiose schemes. In implementing grandiose schemes, those on the other side were receiving élites, which meant a cosy relationship developed between the élites in some developing countries and those selling them equipment. The legacy of this scenario has continued to this day, as an analysis of Italian aid with its tied consequences will reveal. This approach led to a distorted technology transfer which suited élites and facilitated corruption and which was instigated in the main by western multinational corporations. Salesmen expanded corruption.
I was a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe which I left around the time Mr. Berlusconi was seeking temporary shelter there to enjoy an immunity which was greater than that obtaining in the parliamentary assembly of the European Parliament. The credentials committee investigated what was not what one might call a "heady moment" given the immediately preceding Spanish court case which established in a corruption case liability and beneficial interest on the part of Mr. Berlusconi. Thankfully, TI does not get involved in individual cases though a case involving the prime minister of a country can hardly be described as "individual". Let me put it down as part of a certain strain in Italian culture on which Mr. Berlusconi has put his personal stamp.
On the positive side, I agree with Mr. Murray that the successful recovery of stolen money from Nigeria by the Swiss banking system is interesting. One of the reasons I support the ratification and implementation of the UN convention is to permit the expansion of the process by which the money was recovered. If one developed the current chink in the Swiss system, it would be possible and of great moral significance to seek the repatriation of funds stolen by élites from the poorest of the poor.
The sub-committee can write to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to ask him to ratify the UN convention on corruption.
As soon as possible.
We can write immediately. Witnesses may not know that we have had a great deal of correspondence and presentations on corruption. Mr. John O'Shea of GOAL springs to mind as a person who not only comes to meetings but writes regularly to members on these issues. I see in the note that funding of €390,000 was provided by Development Cooperation Ireland to TI. I presume the money was used for the most part to address issues in Africa. Is there any area or country in particular which TI used that money or other Irish funding to aid?
Mr. Devitt
We do not have a monitoring capacity in that sense. The funding of €390,000 was provided by DCI to promote the African Union convention on corruption to prevent bribery and embezzlement and create greater accountability and transparency in executives, civil services and other state agencies throughout Africa.
In terms of monitoring individual cases or providing assessments of countries, we have a series of research projects entitled national integrity system, NIS, country studies. Ireland will soon be the subject of one such project. The UK was researched two years ago. Some 70 country studies have been conducted thus far. They provide a comparative analysis against an agreed international framework of best practice in government, law making, co-operation among individual institutions and accountability of executives to parliaments. We have conducted an NIS country assessment in Zambia. We will call on greater resources to roll out these projects and provide a continuous and sustainable programme within which we can conduct individual country assessments and monitor the progress made on key recommendations. These assessments are carried out by in-country rather than external experts. We will be conducting a national integrity study on Ireland to assess the strengths and weaknesses of this country's institutions and legal systems in combating corruption.
In order to be even-handed in addressing corruption, we are attempting to conduct these studies throughout the world, not only within developing countries. We have consistently made the point that corruption, and bribery in particular, is a two-way street. Both a briber and a bribee are required to conduct corrupt transactions. We need to examine how well we combat the problem in our own countries before we look overseas. A lot can be learned by means of such assessments. We can trade best practices in national legislation to combat corruption.
In many ways, the matter depends upon the area of the world in which one lives. Elected people have, by and large, moved towards a certain degree of compliance. Just as it would be a mistake to think that corruption is endemic to cultures of developing countries, it would be unfair to think it endemic to bureaucracies of state-led systems. When people make the case for reform, they shift their gaze away from where the demonstrable abuse lies. There is far more accountability in the political system. When I think of the legislation I have witnessed over the past 20 years, the compliance of the State and semi-State sector on matters such as equality and freedom of information has been much higher than in the corporate sector.
Business ethics is the subject of the thinnest debate. Over the past 20 years, ethics have gone out of fashion in the corporate world. Universities in Britain are offering courses and postgraduate study opportunities in corporate responsibility, good governance and business ethics. Practice is flying in the face of these concepts. In terms of corruption, the test will be the strength of will that exists to tackle the issue. I feel strongly on this.
When I was a postgraduate student in economics — maybe it was just as well I left that field — one dealt with annual accounts, such as profit and losses and balance sheets. Research subsequently turned to forecasting yearly and then monthly results. A horde of anonymous shareholders had to be satisfied by celebrity chief executives, board members and directors who seemed to have insatiable capacities for greed. It was no longer an issue of what could be done. I am not so old-fashioned as to claim that it was all about manufacturing. It was not about what could be made or sold but became a matter of how much could be taken.
The amounts taken and delivered by some non-executive directors in Ireland are outrageous. Before discussing corruption with anybody, I would ask whether he or she has investigated the Irish banking sector. It is a question of whether people will support any action to eliminate corruption anywhere in the world. I insist that those who wish to start the journey with me investigate the banks.
Mr. Devitt
We are consistent on the need for ethics in the corporate world. We have reported information already in the public domain on lapses in corporate ethics. TI Ireland is nine months old and we have a lot of work to do. We will not gloss over any element of the national fabric of ethics. The Deputy can rest assured that the issue will not escape our gaze.
Mr. Murray
In so far as the UK is concerned, we carried out a national integrity study a couple of years ago. We faced a challenge in doing so because $20,000 is provided for each study. That sum is one matter in terms of an NIS study in Uganda but another in the case of the United Kingdom. We had to be imaginative in carrying it out. We arrived at some useful information. I leave the UK board in the next few weeks after sitting on it for seven years but high on the agenda for remaining members is investigating what needs to be addressed within the UK rather than simply examining the rest of the world.
I congratulate Deputy Higgins on his intervention, which could have been given by many members of TI. We strongly believe in an even handed approach. Unfortunately, the information we release on the developing world receives far greater publicity than our studies on the developed world. I do not know why that is the case. We have two statistical surveys, the corruptions perceptions index, which focuses principally on the developing world, and the bribe payers index, which describes the countries most likely to provide bribe money. The latter survey receives little publicity. We have done this in an attempt to be even-handed. Within that bribe payers index, there is a breakdown by industry. Three industries have been identified that are perceived around the world as the most corrupt and the most likely to pay bribes in developing countries. These are construction and engineering, oil, gas and mining and defence industries. The UK chapter of Transparency International has taken the lead in initiating work programmes on each of these industries. We now have a major exercise, in collaboration with some professional institutions, on corruption in the construction and engineering industry. This has been internationalised in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The source of bribe money is being looked at very seriously as well as the countries in which matters go wrong.
Most developed countries have implemented legislation following on the OECD convention on the bribery of foreign public officials. However, what is missing in most countries is enforcement of the legislation. This is where the energy is needed. It is one thing to have a law, but if it is not enforced what good does it do? We repeatedly say this in the UK and every Transparency International chapter in the developed world is saying the very same to their governments. It is a disgrace that the members of the G8 and EU member states have not put more urgent energy into ratifying and subsequently implementing and enforcing the UN convention against corruption. Recently, I have been engaged with a G8 programme on the broader Middle East that extends from Pakistan to Mauritania. However, we have asked ourselves how we, as representatives of G8 chapters of Transparency International, can tell the region to ratify and enforce the UN convention against corruption when our own governments have not done so. I agree with Deputy Michael D. Higgins on that issue.
As to his questions on the technical construction of the surveys, as I am not a statistician, I will not comment on them. However, their construction is largely carried out by expert academic statisticians based in a German university, with their basis published on our website.
It is vital that home governments of multinational companies and large companies with a major slice of export business within their revenues are pressed to promote international corporate ethics as a reality and not merely as a veneer of reputation. The focus on reputation management within corporate ethics is a major problem. It is about risk reduction largely and very often avoidance of addressing the reality. I believe the home governments of companies operating internationally need to put some pressure on them to act in a more responsible manner in many different respects and not just corruption.
One can congratulate the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on the way he is insisting the transparency programme on the oil industry is taken forward and not just talked about. Legislation to open up the question of revenue management of the oil and gas industries has been introduced in the Nigerian national assembly. However, the companies themselves have to play their part.
An alternative source of good statistics, refereed and published, is the reports of the UN commissions based in the UN office in Geneva. It has always astonished me that western governments do not use this source of information. When I examined the report on the future energy requirements of Europe, it stated assumptions and tested several models. In the case of the OECD, there is a comfortable embedding within the neoliberal model which suits.
There is a contradiction at the heart of this discussion. It is why I referred to the Economist Intelligence Unit and Freedom House. The material the former was providing at the end of the 1980s is different from what it produces now. It has established its stall within the neoliberal paradigm. I do not have a problem with people presenting this paradigm. My problem is that it is presented as the sole and inevitable paradigm. This is the same with Freedom House. The contradiction one has to bear in mind is the suggestion that if state regulation is eliminated, one will automatically get a system that is primitively clean. The evidence suggests otherwise.
The systems that have given accountability, transparency, reforming legislation, gender equality and so forth have been state and semi-state. The alternative, alleged freedom in its distorted form, is unrestrained, primitive and acquisitive greed as it has been defined by many people since the end of the 1980s. I am supportive of the general idea of the wide thrust of the organisation. While I wish the members of its advisory council well, there are few on it who are not in the neoliberal paradigm. The best that can be said of these luminaries is that they favour what they call ethical globalisation. This is remarkably similar to a programme I made once on sustainable development, which was invented in Rio at a UN conference. I am being a bit cynical. However, I wish Transparency International Ireland gets more ecumenical support.
Mr. Devitt
We will be adding to the list of luminaries on our board and advisory council over the next year. I must point out, however, that Transparency International Ireland is only nine months old, the baby of NGOs. Every effort has been made over the last year to be as inclusive as is humanly possible. We will be adding to our board of directors in the next several weeks, including representatives from community and voluntary groups. I do not hold a candle for any one political or economic constituency. We are non-partisan. Our role is to enhance the integrity of Government and corporate life in Ireland.
As regards the surveys, Mr. David Murray referred to the bribe payers index. We also produce what is called a global corruption barometer, which is published every December. It will be published again on UN anti-corruption day. That monitors public attitudes to corruption and how they have encountered corruption. The last global corruption barometer was conducted in 64 countries and showed a high degree of correlation with our other studies. The one salient point is that the poor are affected most by corruption. They are more likely to be asked for a bribe than any other sector.
As regards the UN convention, we echo the call made by the Chairman and committee members for ratification and implementation. However, on its own, it is only a piece of paper. Unless it is implemented and enforced properly, it is worthless. We already have an OECD convention against bribery which was implemented in the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2001. However, there has not been one successful prosecution.
The OECD convention is different. Despite being ratified only by France and Hungary, rather than all the European countries, the United Nations convention has the necessary ratifications. Some 33 documents were lodged last week. It is interesting to note that as countries ratify it, they will make declarations or reservations. The absence of ratification says something about a country, as do the declarations or reservations which countries may make when depositing their ratifications. It is useful. It is a legal instrument. It is interesting that some countries are arguing that if there is a dispute between two countries, an agreement must be reached before going to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It will be open to people to use that route after 15 December and people should use it. Some of the countries which have ratified it have the reservation that if there is a dispute between two countries, there must be an agreement before they will accept the discipline of the court. It will be stronger than the OECD convention if it is used properly.
Mr. Devitt
I am concerned that the political will is not there to enforce existing anti-corruption legislation in Ireland. The last successful prosecution for corruption was in 1944. Since then we have fudged or attempted to direct attention away from the issue. We must spend more time and devote more resources to implementing and enforcing not just legislation on corruption but also regulations in the financial services industry in Ireland. We must also ratify and implement new conventions on corruption. That implies devotion to technical capacity and additional resources given to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Development Cooperation Ireland, the Department of Finance and our regulatory agencies to deal with malfeasance in the corporate and public sectors.
I thank you for your presentation. We will follow up this issue at meetings of the sub-committee and joint committee.
The sub-committee adjourned at 11.05 a.m. sine die.