Bank staff on course for diploma in white collar crime
STAFF from the Central Bank and the Revenue Commissioners were among students who last night began a 20-week course in a newly established diploma in white collar crime.
The course was launched yesterday by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Claire Loftus, who welcomed it as "ambitious," "wide-ranging "and "timely".
The diploma will be taught at King's Inns -- the barrister training college in Dublin.
A total of 63 students have enrolled for the course, which was heavily over-subscribed.
Ms Loftus said the students included members of the Revenue Commissioners, the Health and Safety Authority and specialist investigation branches of the gardai.
The topics covered include market manipulation, insider trading, fraud and corruption.
Students will study the practical application of the law regarding white-collar crime and the course will examine recent events in banks and other financial institutions.
Corruption
It began yesterday with a lecture on the theory of reasons and motivations behind corporate crime.
Shelley Horan, who is running the diploma and is its head lecturer, told the Irish Independent that interest was more wide-ranging than she had first imagined.
She expected around 20 students to apply but has taken on three times that amount.
A second round of the diploma will begin next October for students who are interested in studying corporate crime. It is hoped that the course will run every year.
A number of the attendees at the opening of the course yesterday said that they worked at the Central Bank and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
Ms Loftus commended Ms Horan on her work in setting up the course.
She said that the laws regarding corruption had become more complex in recent years.
"It's most welcome in so far as the course content, while ambitious as I say, appears to address many of the practical aspects of this wide ranging area, including the investigation of cases and their presentation in court," she said.
She said that she was involved in the first state prosecutions for fatality in the work place and money laundering and was glad to those issues were covered by the course.
A number of well-respected experts and senior counsels are lined up to give lectures for the diploma.
- Luke Byrne
Irish Independent
