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

As is the case with of any type of fraud, whether it is employer fraud, corporate fraud, tax fraud or whatever, one can only ever recover a certain proportion of the amount of fraud that takes place. The sum of €41 million is only a proportion of that and I would like us to recover a lot more of it. If I was in the Department of Finance, I would adopt the same approach to tax fraud and other fraud.

I did not invent the calculation of €506 million. It is based on a statistical model and it was developed with the CSO. The model is used in other countries and it is used for comparative purposes. My Department stands over the use of such a model. It is one of the more conservative models. Much higher multiples are used in Sweden when conducting its estimates. Sweden has a very advanced welfare state.

I will answer Deputy O'Dea's question and correct him and others. Any list produced of people convicted of welfare fraud will not be people who have committed welfare fraud in my eyes. They will be people who have been convicted of welfare fraud in a court of law in this State. It is already public information. News media outlets regularly report on these cases. We will do much less than what Revenue does. Revenue produces lists of settlements, as well as convictions. We will only produce a list of convictions and not of people who have appealed their convictions. The provision will only apply to new cases for constitutional reasons. The provision will not apply to people who are already in the process. The list will comprise people who have been convicted of fraud in a court of law.