Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

We have said that we will not reduce welfare rates but we will hopefully reduce the welfare budget, for example, by the elimination of fraud. Having spoken to social welfare officers, I know there is a significant amount of fraud. I want to unleash frontline people and that is why I introduced the website for ideas, although some people thought it was a publicity stunt. On the first day it was in operation, we had 50,000 hits.