Ireland's Corruption Level Improves In Light Of UK's

An influential corruption assessor has said Ireland's corruption level has improved , but partly because the UK's has become increasingly worse!

In a document released on Tuesday, Ireland's 'corruption score' has improved, bringing it to 16th in the world out of 180 countries surveyed.

Last year, Ireland lay in 17th place, while the UK was in the relatively strong position of 12th; however, recent scandals including the 'cash for honours' debacle, and controversy over the BA dealings with Saudi officials and the subsequent scrapping of an inquiry by the UK Government has led to a significant drop of five places for the UK.

Conducted by Transparency International (TI), the influential survey can affect potential investment and tourism within a country.

Ireland's ranking experienced a similar fall to the UK's six years ago following the emergence of evidence of secret payments to Charles Haughey and other politicians.

Next year's survey could equally be affected by the findings of the Mahon tribunal over the Quarryvale investigation.

John Devitt Chief Executive of TI Ireland said: "Corruption and cover-ups are picked up by international investors like sharks smelling blood.

"The dramatic fall in the UK's score is a likely sign of investor concerns about alleged corruption in Britain’s aerospace industry, and lax controls on political funding."

Global investors and analysts are now expected to accept Ireland is no more corrupt than one of its investment competitors, the UK.

However it still lags way behind in the index from direct competitors for jobs and investment such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland and Denmark.

The recent trebling of the value of gifts and loans politicians can keep without disclosing them, as well as delays in introducing safeguards for whistleblowers and high fees for public information, mean that Ireland is expected to sit in the third-tier of honest democracies for the time being.

The international survey found that Denmark was the least corrupt nation, whilst Somalia was the most corrupt, and found a direct correlation between corruption and a countries economic position, with many poverty stricken African nations also suffering at the hands of corrupt officials

(DW)