Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

What steps will the Minister take to ensure the system is strengthened? I have asked him this already and he more or less outlined what is being done at present. However, my reason for asking is that my original question in March looked for the figures in 2007. The statistics I am using, according to the reply I received — for 13.9% of non-Irish nationals and 1.7% of Irish nationals — relate only to last year. That means that a significant number of people under the system currently in place were still able to make fraudulent claims through the Department. Therefore this is still a live issue and its scale remains significant. The response the Minister has given appears to indicate that matters are all right when clearly they are not, if that number of people are able to make fraudulent claims.

I am seeking a more specific response from the Minister in terms of what his Department is doing to ensure that this level of fraudulence cannot continue. Obviously the measures taken to date have been insufficient to tackle the problem.

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