The lack of a national identity card scheme is putting Ireland at a disadvantage in the battle against terrorism and organised crime, business leaders claimed today.
Aileen O'Donoghue, director of Ibec's financial sector group, told a conference that ID cards could help halt money laundering and funding of subversive organisations.
"Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are using a variety of new ways of laundering their criminal wealth," she said.
"A range of legitimate businesses from betting shops to art galleries and auctioneers are increasingly at risk of exploitation by criminals in their attempt to disguise their criminal proceeds.
"A national identity card would help financial institutions to easily and more securely identify customers and would assist efforts to catch criminals abusing the financial system," she said.
Ms O'Donoghue told the Financial Services Ireland conference in Dublin that European anti-money laundering law assumes that secure and verifiable forms of identification are universally available.
"This is true in many European countries, particularly those that operate a mandatory identity cards system, but not in Ireland," she said. "This makes the implementation of anti-money laundering measures much more complicated and expensive for businesses here."
The conference also heard that a new EU directive will place further administrative burdens and costs on the Irish financial sector. The directive obliges financial institutions to take additional measures to verify the identity of their customers.
While the directive will apply throughout the European Union, the absence of a national identity scheme here imposes greater costs on the financial sector in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe.
The directive is due to become law in Ireland by December 2007