Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 28 May 2015

Public Accounts Committee

2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 10 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 11 - Control of Supplementary Welfare Allowances
Chapter 12 - Farm Assist
Social Insurance Fund 2013

10:00 am

Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

In almost all cases, there is a dimension to it, but in a large number of cases, when one looks at the circumstances, what the person is doing is not actually contravening the rules of any scheme. I suggest that it is very much a guesstimate. However, we consider that about 20% of the tip-offs we receive actually yield a value in control terms, but it is a guesstimate. When the decisions are made eventually, they are not tracked in that way and accorded as being related back to a tip-off.