Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

It certainly did increase over a number of years. When the recession hit, it increased significantly. I think, on average, it had been certainly in the low thousands, and in 2011 it was up to nearly 17,000. In 2012 it hit its peak, at 28,000. It came down a little bit in 2013 to just under 25,000, and in 2014 it was 23,000.

It is still very high. Anything that is reported to us, any information we receive, is investigated and followed up. A significant number of reports must be looked at on different levels. Have we got sufficient information to identify the person about whom a complaint is made? In some instances, we may not have. In other instances, somebody thinks that a person is involved in fraudulent activity whereas that person may be in receipt of a payment which allows him or her to engage in economic activity, so he or she is not necessarily defrauding the system. He or she could be doing no more than he or she is entitled to. People have a perception that if somebody is in receipt of social welfare, he or she should have no other engagement with the workforce but in quite a number of our schemes, there is a facility to do that in a significant way or in a limited way.