Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The prevention of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system is an integral part of the day-to-day work of the Department. More than 600 staff at local, regional and national level are engaged on a full-time or part-time basis on work related to the control of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system.

Last year, almost €476 million in social welfare payments was saved through fraud control measures, an increase of €29 million on the previous year. The main areas where savings were made were on pensions, one parent family payments, unemployment payments and illness payments. More than 560,000 social welfare claims were reviewed in 2008, compared to less than 350,000 the previous year.

There was also a notable increase in the number of possible frauds reported by members of the public to the central control section of the Department, which rose by 70%, to more than 1,000 reports. The target set for savings from general control activity in 2008 was very ambitious, at €63 million more than had been achieved in 2007. Nonetheless, with the type of extra activity I have outlined, savings were close to the target at year end.

Unfortunately, however, the increase in the volume of applications for jobseeker's allowance payments in the last six months of 2008 meant that social welfare inspectors who had been concentrating on anti-fraud activity had to be diverted to means testing applicants in order that claims could be decided on faster. This resulted in slightly less being realised under the general fraud control measures than had been envisaged at the start of 2008.

However, the €25 million of savings in targeted programmes announced in July will be exceeded. A sum of €9 million was saved as a result of the increased emphasis on the unemployment schemes by the Department's special investigation unit while €20 million of savings are estimated to result from increasing the frequency of mailshots to child benefit recipients. A project related to the one parent family payment in Kilbarrack local office resulted in savings of almost €500,000 by the end of 2008.

Another measure introduced in 2008 aimed at preventing fraud was the requirement for new claimants of jobseeker's payments to collect money in person each week at the post office rather than being paid by electronic funds transfer. The Department will continue to prioritise fraud control across all of our schemes to ensure that the correct payments are made to the correct people for the duration of the period to which they have an entitlement to them.

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