Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Public Accounts Committee
2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015
9:00 am
Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:
There is no naughty list. People are entitled to a social welfare payment or they are not entitled. At any moment in time regardless of their previous history, they either have an entitlement or do not have an entitlement.
People may have been overpaid for some reason or other in the past and we will have sought to recover that overpayment. In certain circumstances where we were convinced there was serious fraud involved we may have prosecuted the individual and he or she may have suffered a sanction on foot of the prosecution. That has no bearing on their entitlement at any moment in time.