Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

There are approximately 90 staff members in serious fraud control and over 600 staff engaged full time in control activity. That represents 10% of the staff of the Department. In addition, every officer involved in processing and deciding claims has a control dimension to his or her work. I assure Deputy O'Donnell that just as we take very seriously our obligation to process and deliver payments as quickly as possible to people who are eligible, we also take seriously our responsibility to ensure that people who are not entitled to payments are stopped at point of claim or detected very quickly.