Debate contribution: Tackling Scams and Improving Public Protection

Debate contribution by Ms Cheryl Brownlee on 9 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Cheryl Brownlee

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

9 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Tackling Scams and Improving Public Protection

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5296433

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you for tabling the motion. We should all have been horrified when we read the recent story of 82-year-old Eddie Rushe from Lurgan, who was cruelly scammed out of nearly £35,000. Eddie was targeted through sophisticated AI-generated advertisements bearing the faces of well-known public figures. It began as what he believed to be a legitimate and trusted investment opportunity but ultimately led to a devastating financial and emotional loss. Tragically, his experience is not an isolated incident. It is shameful that older people are increasingly singled out because of their vulnerability, trust and lower familiarity with technology. The criminals know exactly what they are doing. They prey on loneliness and fear, and the harm that they inflict goes far beyond bank statements. Many victims are left feeling deeply shaken, anxious and distraught, particularly at this time of year, when isolation can make the emotional impact even heavier. It is the scale of the problem that should alarm us all. The PSNI reported more than 5,200 cases of fraud in the past year alone, with almost £19 million in losses. Every week in Northern Ireland, about 100 reports of scams are made to Action Fraud, and I am sure that there are many more that are not reported. Those crimes are no longer small. They are growing in sophistication, using phones, tech, social media and email in order to deceive, impersonate and manipulate. Increasingly, scams are enabled by modern technology, with the likes of AI making scams harder to identify. The emerging rise in cross-border fraud is even more concerning. Under the new joint agency task force, the PSNI and the gardaí are investigating dozens of complex scams that target individual companies, particularly in border areas. The perpetrators of those scams pose as legitimate buyers and have left local businesses thousands of pounds out of pocket, sometimes stealing valuable machinery by using fake or cancelled payment screenshots. That is a coordinated criminal threat. It is planned and requires coordinated policing and a governmental response. Although we recognise and value the work of the PSNI, ScamwiseNI and other partnerships and, of course, our policing and community safety partnerships (PCSPs) and Crimestoppers, along with many other important contributions by the voluntary and community sector, the message from the evidence is clear: more needs to be done. The Department of Justice has an essential role, not just in awareness-raising but in ensuring that agencies on the ground have the support and resources that they need to keep pace with the evolving nature of fraud. Our older generations deserve to live in safety, free from the threat of crime, abuse and exploitation. We have continually set out in our manifestos that we should protect our older generation from financial abuse, and redoubling our efforts against online fraud is now more important than ever. We also need better data to understand both how such abuse is broken down by age and its true impact on our older population. The motion rightly calls for "a coordinated, cross-departmental strategy", because joined-up action will protect our elderly, support victims and bring the criminals to justice. Working together across departmental organisations will bring justice here, and we will try to deal with it in a coordinated way, because we all must work together. Before I conclude, I want to say that there is no shame whatsoever when a scam happens. Emma said that people can feel embarrassed about it, but it has probably happened to every person in the Chamber in some shape or form. Things are becoming more complex now, and it is harder to distinguish between the truth and fraud. People should never feel shame and never feel embarrassed. They should always contact somebody to clarify things and be sure before they go any further. As I said, it has happened to me, and I thought that I was pretty decent with tech, but obviously not, and things are also more complex. We are very happy to support the motion and the amendment. The more that we can do to raise awareness and support for everybody involved in this space, the better, in order to protect our community and society.

693 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:08 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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