Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

That has clarified the matter.

The Minister stated that a letter goes out at the start of the year notifying people about pension increases and he stated that there are 37,000 non-resident Irish pensioners. What checks are in place to pick up on persons who have died since the previous year? The Minister spoke about the system in Australia where there is an official notification procedure. What about all the others, particularly pensioners in the UK? What checks does the Department carry out to ensure that those people are still alive?

If the Department is sending such letters as a type of check, sending out 300 to a cohort of 37,000 is really only scratching the surface. I want the Minister to give some assurance to taxpayers that he is taking a vigorous approach to this and putting in place a system which will pick up on those fraudulent payments. He has not done that to date and perhaps he could take this opportunity to reassure us that he is taking the issue seriously.

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