The sale of counterfeit DVDs and computer games at car boot sales and markets around the country has largely been eradicated, but criminal gangs are now selling the same products door to door, according to Fianna Fáil TD Donie Cassidy.
Mr Cassidy is chairman of the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business, which yesterday heard from Minister for Justice Michael McDowell about what his department was doing to enforce the provisions of the Copyright Act 2000.
Mr Cassidy has several music shops among his business interests.
Earlier this year, the committee heard from representatives of the film industry that 64 per cent of legitimate DVD business in Ireland was lost to piracy each year, to the value of €115.2 million. Concern was expressed at the meeting that the law was not being enforced.
Operation Pine, the joint Garda/PSNI investigation of organised crime involvement in counterfeit trade, led to the seizure of €6 million worth of goods in 2004 and €7 million so far this year.
The operation has found that organised crime and paramilitary groups are heavily involved in counterfeiting and are reinvesting the profits in other criminal activities.
The Minister said one of the major issues in combating the problem was public perception of copyright infringement.
"There is little doubt, compared with other property crimes, the widespread view is that this type of theft, if not victimless, then at most is of concern only to anonymous global corporations," he said.
Mr McDowell suggested bodies such as the Irish National Federation Against Copyright Theft could learn from the insurance sector and offer large rewards for people who provided information about copyright infringement.
Confidential tip-off lines have proved extremely successful in combating insurance fraud.
Mr Cassidy said much could be learned from Scotland, where copyright infringement is a criminal offence. He said that because the legislation was more stringently enforced in other jurisdictions, foreign criminal gangs were now operating in Ireland with relative impunity.
Despite heavy penalties for copyright infringement, the number of cases taken in Ireland is extremely low.
