FSB urges politicians to address business crime

A survey on behalf of Northern Ireland businesses owners has revealed that more than a third believe that reporting crimes to the police “will achieve nothing”.

Research, based on a survey of the Federation of Small Business’ (FSB) 5,000 members in Northern Ireland, also found that 59% of small businesses have suffered at least one crime during the last year. The most frequent of these are vandalism (30%), vehicle damage (34%) and burglary (17%).

Wilfred Mitchell, FSB Policy Chairman said: “Crime has a devastating impact on small firms, eating into slim budgets and causing disruption and anxiety in the workplace.

”Our research reveals that the true extent of business crime is not reflected official figures as many firms have effectively opted out of the criminal justice system.”

Mr Mitchell said that if election candidates were serious about protecting Northern Ireland’s 65,000 small businesses then they were going to have to start addressing the problem of crime.

In its fifth policy principle for a general election year FSB said it was calling on the political parties to commit to a number of issues including: a zero tolerance to anti-social behaviour; crime against businesses to be recorded separately from domestic crime to give a true picture of its extent: and 100% first year tax relief for investment in security.

(MB/SP)