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:

I do not have the figures with me, but we could generate them. We have not generated them up to this point, but we should be able to do so if they are of interest to the Deputy. We built in those controls specifically to avoid concerns about cases of contractors committing fraud in other countries. We only pay when people receive a commencement of employment notice from Revenue and sign off on it, which means that we know that they are no longer claiming a payment and are in employment. If we cannot verify it in our systems, we do not pay. It is a good control to have in place.