Ireland ratified the Council of Europe Criminal Convention on Corruption through the introduction of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2001, which was signed into law on 9th July, 2001. This legislation also enabled Ireland to ratify EU and OECD conventions against corruption.
Ireland became a member of GRECO in May 1999. GRECO (Group of States against Corruption) was conceived as a flexible and efficient follow-up mechanism, called to monitor, through a process of mutual evaluation and peer pressure, State’s observance of the Guiding Principles in the Fight against Corruption and the implementation of international legal instruments adopted in pursuance of the Programme of Action against Corruption. Full membership of GRECO is reserved to those who participate fully in the mutual evaluation process and accept to be evaluated.
According to its Statute, the aim of GRECO is to improve its members’ capacity to fight corruption by monitoring the compliance of States with their undertakings in this field. In this way, it will contribute to identifying deficiencies and insufficiencies of national mechanisms against corruption, and to prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms in order to better prevent and combat corruption.
GRECO is responsible, in particular, for monitoring observance of the Guiding Principles for the Fight against Corruption and implementation of the international legal instruments adopted against Corruption: