Three major social media companies have refused invitations from the Oireachtas Finance Committee to appear before it to discuss a rising level of online scams and frauds, RTÉ's Morning Ireland understands.
The committee is in the midst of a series of sessions dealing with issues around scams and fraud and has been hearing from various stakeholders and organisations impacted by the issue.
Facebook, Twitter, and Google were all invited to appear before the committee.
In a written reply, Twitter told the Finance Committee it was not able to attend but offered to give a written response to any questions.
Google also declined to appear, saying it did not have any relevant speakers available who would be able to help the committee.
Google added that its Safety Engineering Center in Dublin "occasionally runs information sessions on issues including fraud".
It is understood Facebook responded to the committee verbally to confirm it would not be attending, saying it would not be able to make anyone available.
It comes as figures last week from the Department of Justice show that since 2019 there has been a huge increase in the level of reported frauds and scams to Gardaí.
Account-takeover fraud has jumped by 560%, with nearly 2,400 reports, while investment fraud nearly tripled over the period.
According to the figures, reports of phishing, vishing, and smishing scams increased fourfold between 2019 and 2022 – rising from 320 to 1,653.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty, a member of the Finance Committee, said that he believes online platforms and social media companies "are not doing enough to tackle fraudulent content and the targeting of victims through their channels".
He added: "It's not acceptable that we have companies here that are headquartered in Ireland and are refusing to come before the Finance Committee.
"The Finance Committee has been flexible in relation to having them before us at different dates.
"These companies would be very familiar with some of the changes that are taking place, particularly in Britain and in the North, where social media platforms like them are actually now being asked to compensate victims of authorised push payments, because some of these scams are actually taking place on these platforms in the first instance, and in some cases through paid advertisement."
The Committee will discuss the refusal of the social media companies to attend hearings at a private session later today (WED).
Mr Doherty said the committee intends to write back to "all of these companies, and we'll be asking them to come before the committee again, and I expect that they will actually appear and answer questions in relation to the type of fraud that we're seeing, the role that social media platforms are playing, and also the role that they are playing in relation to clamping down and stamping out this type of fraud".
The Banking & Payments Federation (BPFI), which appeared before the Finance Committee recently on the issue, said it wants to see a "whole-of-system response" to tackling scams.
Head of Financial Crime with the BPFI Niamh Davenport said: "We're already working with An Garda Síochána, we're working with ComReg to stop the likes of text scams and different things like that.
"But a lot of the scams start online. By the time the banks already see them, the fraud has already happened. The first sight that we have is when we see a payment coming in.
"So we really want to work cross-sector with social media companies and all of the players that are involved to prevent the crime from happening in the first place."
