{"id":658724,"date":"2026-10-18T20:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658724\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T20:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:42:09","slug":"scale-of-dark-money-flowing-through-ireland-a-threat-to-national-security-report-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658724\/","title":{"rendered":"Scale of ‘dark money’ flowing through Ireland a threat to national security, report warns\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scale of \u201cdark money\u201d flowing through Irish financial services should be considered a national security threat, according to an Oireachtas committee.<\/p>\n

A new report by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform, and Digitalisation has also expressed concern about the Government\u2019s response to tackling the problem of \u201cdark money\u201d and funding levels for anti-money laundering enforcement by the State.<\/p>\n

The report warned that gaps in enforcement measures are limiting the ability to tackle how dark money \u2014 the proceeds of corruption, organised crime, and other illicit activities \u2014 flows through the Irish financial services sector.<\/p>\n

The committee, which is chaired by Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Mair\u00e9ad Farrell, observed the risks posed by dark money include sanctions circumvention, money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and financial stability, which all pose a threat to Ireland\u2019s reputation as a location for financial services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the State is not sure what it is assisting financially, it risks being complicit in financing conflict,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The committee has called on the minister for finance, Simon Harris<\/a>, to fully implement its recommendations \u201cas a matter of priority.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its findings drew on evidence provided to the committee earlier this year by Transparency International Ireland, which also identified the need for greater regulation of Special Purpose Entities (SPEs), which hold over \u20ac1.3 trillion in funds, and Section 110 tax arrangements, which allow SPEs to treat their assets in a tax-neutral manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving held an in-depth consideration of the topic of dark money with Transparency International Ireland, the committee believes that there are significant issues at present with the Government\u2019s response to this issue,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n

Transparency International Ireland claims Ireland\u2019s exposure to dark money is significant, with net assets in Irish-domiciled funds totalling \u20ac5.5tn.<\/p>\n

While the organisation could not say how much could be considered dark money, it noted the UN has estimated that illicit sources account for 2% to 5% of global GDP, which indicated the figure was \u201cmore than likely in the billions than in the order of millions”.<\/p>\n

The group told the committee that the State\u2019s willingness to take robust action against illicitly obtained foreign assets remains \u201cunproven.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recommendations<\/p>\n

Among the report\u2019s recommendations were reducing the threshold for disclosing beneficial ownership of entities below 25% and improved resourcing of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and other regulatory agencies, which tackle money laundering and analyse cryptocurrency transactions.<\/p>\n

The committee also called for a strengthening of the Standards in Public Office Commission\u2019s powers and resources to provide greater information about the funding and spending of political parties in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Welcoming the report, Transparency International Ireland said its recommendations closely reflected issues which it had been raising over several years.<\/p>\n

TI Ireland\u2019s chief executive, John Devitt, said there were still several areas where the Government’s response to illicit finance \u201cdo not yet go far enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Devitt pointed out that resourcing of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau and its Financial Intelligence Unit is not addressed in any of 30 priority actions in the Government\u2019s Anti-Money Laundering Action Plan, despite repeated domestic and international calls for increased capacity.<\/p>\n

He said supervision of SPEs also remained a major gap as the Central Bank of Ireland has previously acknowledged that 90% of SPEs fall outside the scope of anti-money laundering supervision.<\/p>\n

Mr Devitt added: \u201cThe recommendations reflect a growing cross-party consensus that Ireland\u2019s role as a leading international financial centre brings serious responsibilities as well as economic benefits.\u201d TI Ireland called on the Government to set out clear timelines for implementation of the report\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scale of \u201cdark money\u201d flowing through Irish financial services should be considered a national security threat, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1115,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-658724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-crime","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}