Existing legislation is unable to counter a pyramid selling get- rich-quick scheme, which has already cost significant numbers of people up to £3,000.
The Labour Party yesterday published a Private Members Bill, which would impose jail terms of up to five years and £1,500 in fines for anyone involved in such schemes.
The Oireachtas must pass the legislation before the Christmas break to prevent the exploitation of some of Ireland's most vulnerable people, it said.
Titled "The Eternal Circle", the scheme targets women and promises a £24,000 return on the £3,000 investment within weeks, if eight others are encouraged to join.
It first appeared in Ireland in low-income housing estates in Dublin a few months ago. "But it has been spreading nationally like wildfire," warned Labour TD Ms Mary Upton yesterday.
"They are simply a variation of the pyramid-selling schemes outlawed in the 1980s. The net result is the same. Large numbers of people may invest, but only those in at the beginning have any chance of benefiting and the majority stand to lose," she said.
The Tβnaiste, Ms Harney, has told the Dβil that the garda∅ believe the 1980 Pyramid Selling Act 1980 is of no use.
Ms Upton said: "Nobody knows for definite the people behind them [the schemes]. The promotional material does not carry an address. The promoters do not have offices. Business is normally done through meetings held in pubs, hotels or private houses.
"Cheques are not accepted. Payments must be made in cash. Promotional material contains quite misleading information about liability. Participants are advised not to put any money they receive into a bank account - safety deposit boxes, premiums bonds, offshore accounts and building societies are suggested as safer options."
Inevitably the schemes collapse, as they did in Albania. "The pyramid has to grow at a rate that would, from the initial recruitment of just eight members, very quickly top two million people," the TD said..
Even worse, people here are being encouraged to get their families, neighbours and friends to join up, said Ms Upton. "Not only will they lose money, but they will also lose friends."
The £3,000 figure is "cleverly pitched", she said.
"It is small enough for people to believe that it won't land them in trouble. Banks don't necessarily ask what the loans are for. This is born out of need, or greed. Greedy people see it as an easy option. The needy are conned into it. Maybe they are desperate. They have no other way."
The British government has already introduced emergency legislation to outlaw the scheme, which begin in the US, following difficulties on the Isle of Wight.
Ms Joanna Tuffy, Labour's general election candidate in Dublin Mid-West, said hundreds of people in her constituency have fallen victim to the scheme already.
"There is a perception that everybody is wealthy now. There is unbelievable pressure on people to get presents for the children," she said.
