Written answers
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Department of Social Protection
Social Welfare Fraud Cost
Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she is on course to target benefit fraud to the value of €625 million in 2012; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38974/12]
Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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My Department has a target of reviewing 985,000 individual welfare claims and achieving €645m in control savings in 2012, an increase of €105m on the 2011 target. At the end of July, over €400m in control savings were reported and over 650,000 reviews had been carried out. I fully expect that my Department will achieve the 2012 control targets. It is important to remember that control savings are an estimate of the value of the various control activities across the schemes in payment. They represent an estimate of the value of prevented expenditure from control activity over a future period. Control savings are not actual monies recovered by the Department but are a good indication of the increase in social welfare expenditure that would occur without these activities taking place. These activities also have a deterrent or knock-on effect, which are not readily quantifiable in monetary terms. Control savings are used as a performance indicator for year-on-year activities.
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