Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 November 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 – Employment Affairs and Social Protection
Chapter 4 – Control over Welfare Payments

11:30 am

Mr. John McKeon:

What can sometimes happen on some schemes is that someone might have claimed a disability allowance payment, for example. It could then turn out on review that the person does not meet the medical conditionality, but he or she would have met the conditionality for the jobseeker's allowance payment. That is one example. In that case, while the person is on the wrong scheme, and there is an overpayment on that scheme, in net terms there is not an overpayment. The same would happen, for example, if someone falsely claims invalidity pension and it turns out that he or she was not entitled to it but could have claimed disability allowance. It is those kinds of changes that occur, and mainly with people on the wrong scheme.