Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to move on to debt recovery. There was an interesting conversation on that here today. I wish to discuss two debts - one is amounts owed to the Department by various claimants under the Vote and the other is amounts due to the social insurance fund from employers in respect of redundancy and insolvency payments. I never hear the same level of animation about chasing the debts under the redundancy and employers insolvency fund. I will outline the figures so people will understand what I mean.

Of the Social Insurance Fund, the amount paid out in 2014 in respect of which the Department of Social Protection made a contribution as a result of insolvency or statutory redundancy was €41 million. The Department recovered €8 million from employers, but it wrote off €19 million.

We will turn to the Department's Vote in respect of people who have been in receipt of payments. The detailed note on this matter is on page 34. Ms O'Donoghue knows the figures well. The Department deemed that there were overpayments for various reasons of €88 million. That is fine. The Department recovered €65 million, but it wrote off €2 million. The amount outstanding on that account is €377 million and the amount outstanding on the Social Insurance Fund from employers is €447 million. The amount that the Department has written off for employers under the fund is far in excess of what it writes off on the other side. Some companies have gone bust and we understand that there are reasons for the Department being unable to collect money, but there has never been the same level of chasing people on that side of the house as there has been on the other. Every Deputy is hearing from people who have stopped getting €30 per week or 15% of their payments.

I must be critical. The Department of Social Protection is one of the best Departments, but the issue of debt recovery has caused difficulties. We are hearing from people whom, after working for years and reaching State pension age, the Department has told they owe it €7,000 for the previous 18 years over a jobseeker's allowance or adult dependant payment, for example. The Department hits them when they reach pension age. It checks all of that, but it did not give them an opportunity during their working lives to repay the money.

The Department is swift. I admire that. I will cite an example. The Department makes an attachment order on some people's bank accounts if they have money in them. It correctly sent a letter to a person who called to my clinic on a Wednesday because there had been an overpayment of €29,000. The Department wrote to his bank on the Wednesday saying how much was owed. He had exhausted the full process and arrived in my office 36 hours later on Friday morning. When I telephoned the person who wrote the letter, I was told that the Department had got the money from the man's bank account the previous night. The Department was able to activate an attachment order within one working day. Would it try to do this on the other side of the Social Insurance Fund? Some of the people involved on that side will reappear as employers under someone else's name the following month. How many attachment orders has the Department made in respect of the Social Insurance Fund versus the Vote and what were the amounts recovered?