Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No, I will be very direct. My understanding is that there were not as many involved in inspections in 2012 as there were in the previous year. One can have all the systems in the world, but they rely on intelligence about whether people are abusing the rent supplement scheme and so forth. CWOs have this intelligence in abundance because they are the first line of call. If people are making an application to the Department of Social Protection, their first port of call is the CWO. CWOs are on the ground in health and community centres.

We are pulling back less than 0.5% in terms of fraud. I have a fundamental belief the system should be fair. If people are entitled to be receive social welfare payments, they should be paid. They are not receiving a fortune by any means. However, there is a perception among the general public and many on social welfare that there are people who are abusing the system. I expect Ms O'Donoghue would probably also accept this - that it is probably higher than the figure of 0.44%. To deal with this, specialist staff must be put in place, people who can devote their attention to inspections. If a general official is working on a file and then pulled away to the counter, there is no way he or she can devote his or her attention specifically to that file. When the CWOs arrived in the Department, I would have expected this to present an enormous opportunity to use their intelligence effectively to put in place a crack team, which would give comfort to the general public and the vast majority, if not nearly all, of those on social welfare who are genuine that the system was working. In many cases, the general public believes there is large-scale abuse in the social welfare system.

I am talking about personnel, not the systems to which the Comptroller and Auditor General referred. I am talking about cold hard slog from foot soldiers on the ground with an unrivalled intelligence network.