John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned the figure of €506 million. I concur with everything the Chairman said. The figures do not stack up. As the Chairman said, it is not transparent. The Minister said the same formula is used by other countries but I disagree. In 2014, two fraud and error surveys were commenced and the savings generated were much higher than in 2015 when three surveys were conducted. Surveys take place on an annual basis. The Department does not need big fancy campaigns that have a budget of €200,000 to penalise and categorise people as fraudulent. That was the essence of the campaign.

I mention the redundancy payments where €345 million of taxpayers' money was written off. The Department did not roll out a similar campaign in that case.