Ireland 14th in corruption index
Ireland comes 14th in the list of rankings published today by the corruption watchdog Transparency International in its annual corruption perceptions index.
The index scores relate to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts.
The index itself ranges between zero which is highly corrupt and 10 which is clean.
Ireland ranked 8 on that scale behind Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Noway and Hong Kong and ahead of Austria and Germany, both of which measured 7.9.
Despite the relatively good score, John Devitt, Chief Executive of TI Ireland highlighted the dangers of complacency.
"The CPI is a measure of how corrupt international business leaders and academics perceive a country’s public sector," Mr Devitt said.
"Unfortunately there have been many instances where the fragile nature of Ireland’s anti-corruption standards have been exposed but have gone relatively unnoticed, both at home and abroad.
"The events over the past few years show that you don’t have to break the law to be corrupt," Mr Devitt added.
"Politicians and special interests have combined to make decisions for a very powerful minority at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.
"We can start to deal with the problem by controlling the flow of money into Irish politics and encouraging people to come forward and protecting them when they speak up in the public interest."
