Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will start at the top with DCA. The reason we are not meeting the target relates largely to a High Court judgment which required us to modify the process for deciding DCA and other medical scheme applications to demonstrate that the decisions comply with social welfare legislation. The High Court found in April 2016 that the decision letter provided in a negative decision for DCA cases was deficient. To ensure compliance with the judgment, the DCA section has introduced a much more detailed decision letter which requires significantly more work in each application. That has resulted in approximately 50% of applications having to be dealt with by a smaller number of officers at a higher grade in a manner which takes significant additional time.

We are resolving this. A new assessment process was, co-incidentally, introduced at the same time with a new version of the application forms. Supplementary medical forms were also brought in. This has seen the percentage of applications awarded at first assessment and initial decision increase from 43% to 75%, which is positive. As such, 75% of people are being approved where it used to be much lower with many appeals. Over 80% of applications are ultimately successful and that has led to a significant reduction in appeal numbers. While the initial waiting times are much longer than we would wish, the fact that a higher percentage of people are being awarded on first applying has helped more customers to receive their entitlements more quickly, which is positive.

Any increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance will have to be on foot of a Government decision. We are seeing savings emerge across the Department of Social Protection Vote which is due largely to unemployment falling this year again and faster even than we had anticipated. I have no doubt that there will be overruns in other Departments, however, and public sector pay negotiations will come up also. I will fight the corner to be allowed to hang on to some of those savings, but that is going to be a Government decision.

In terms of the fuel allowance, Age Action has suggested a bulk payment for the fuel allowance while other groups hold a different view. I have an open mind on the matter. It would be very complicated for us to administer bulk payments for some and weekly payments for others. We would have to go one way or the other. There are differing views on the matter. I have no objection in principle to moving towards a bulk payment if that is the consensus.

The sum of €41 million represents overpayment fraud. I have a copy of the advertisement for the campaign in front of me. We clearly stated in it that the €500 million refers to control and anti-fraud activity. We put the word "control" before anti-fraud activity. I am not sure members are familiar with Aristotle's 13 fallacies. One of his fallacies is that one claims somebody said something and then lecture him or her on why he or she was wrong. We have always maintained that the €500 million refers to control and anti-fraud activity. The advertisement is on the billboards. One can clearly see that we put the word "control" ahead of anti-fraud in case anyone thought we were trying to say it was just fraud. The figure of €41 million refers to overpayment fraud, not just overpayments. There is roughly €110 million a year in overpayments of which €41 million is customer fraud. I do not think the sum is minuscule. It is taxpayers' money. I think it is a lot of taxpayers' money, quite frankly. Having been a Minister in Departments with much smaller budgets than this one I know the kind of things we could have done for €41 million, which would have made a big difference in people's lives. The contempt some members of the left in this country have for taxpayers, the work they do and the money they pay into the system bothers me.