Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 December 2017

Public Accounts Committee

Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 16: Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 17: Management of Social Welfare Overpayments
Chapter 18: Department Reviews of welfare Schemes, Social Welfare Appeals Process, Social Insurance Fund

9:00 am

Mr. John McKeon:

We did, yes. We spoke to the British Department for Work and Pensions and we looked at the various national audit office reports in the UK. The Department for Work and Pensions published a statement declaring that neither company had been guilty of any material wrongdoing. It found that there were errors in some of their claims but that they were small in number and were attributable to human error. There were one or two other providers in the United Kingdom that we did not take forward because they were involved in fairly egregious issues in the UK, which were the main focus of the parliamentary inquiry to which the Deputy referred.