{"id":17500,"date":"2026-04-28T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=17500"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:44:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:44:00","slug":"government-continues-to-turn-a-blind-eye-to-online-fraud-and-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/government-continues-to-turn-a-blind-eye-to-online-fraud-and-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"Government continues to turn a blind eye to online fraud and scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social media giants should not be allowed to make money from hosting fraudulent ads, according to Social Democrats finance spokesperson Cian O\u2019Callaghan.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResearch published this morning by the Central Bank showed that more than one in three people have been the victims of fraud, and almost two-thirds have lost money as a result. Online purchase scams made up nearly half (48 per cent) of all fraud taking place in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese criminals are paying to have their scams advertised on social media to vulnerable individuals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResearch carried out by Revolut in February found that social media companies earned an estimated \u20ac32 million last year from scam advertisements targeted at Irish people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSocial media companies are profiting off people\u2019s misery and the Government is doing nothing to stop it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInvestment fraud in particular is identified by the Central Bank as leading to victims losing substantial amounts of money that is difficult to recover.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2024, Department of Finance officials proposed that tech companies would have to vet those who can post financial investment ads. This is a no-brainer proposal that should be in place already but has seen zero action from this Government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m calling on Minister for Finance Simon Harris to explain why he has failed to act on the proposals put forward by his department.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>April 28, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social media giants should not be allowed to make money from hosting fraudulent ads, according to Social Democrats finance spokesperson Cian O\u2019Callaghan. Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said: \u201cResearch published this morning by the Central Bank showed that more than one in three people have been the victims of fraud, and almost two-thirds have lost money as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,88,840,839,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cian-ocallaghan","category-finance","category-fraud","category-online-scams","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Government continues to turn a blind eye to online fraud and scams - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/government-continues-to-turn-a-blind-eye-to-online-fraud-and-scams\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government continues to turn a blind eye to online fraud and scams - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Social media giants should not be allowed to make money from hosting fraudulent ads, according to Social Democrats finance spokesperson Cian O\u2019Callaghan. 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