Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 November 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 11 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 12 - JobPath Employment Activation Service
Chapter 13 - Actuarial Review of Social Insurance Fund
Chapter 14 - Overpayments of Age-Related Jobseeker's Allowance
Chapter 20 - PRSI Contributions by the Self-Employed
2017 Social Insurance Fund

9:00 am

Mr. John McKeon:

There or thereabouts is what we would expect to get. On average, we recover approximately €10 million a year. We have six people working full-time on debt recovery on employers. Many of the employers still trading are still in financial difficulty so if we pursue recovery of the debt too robustly, we are in danger of tripping them over and maybe incurring an even higher debt because of the workers they then have to let go. We always try to get that balance. I looked at a number of cases myself just be sure and there are a number of small businesses that are struggling, particularly outside Dublin. We could go after them but that would not serve anybody's best interest.