Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

They are doing more interviews with people to check if they are genuinely looking for work. They are working particularly on target groups, which are high risk groups. These groups include 18 to 25 year olds, people who were put on an employment action plan and are still on the live register and those who have been put on suspended payments, whom we are targeting in particular.

Regarding child benefit, we will also be targeting those who have shown up as being high risk. In particular this includes non-Irish citizens or those working here whose children are living abroad. We have had significant savings in child benefit in targeting such groups last year. It is an area we will be concentrating on even more over the next number of months.

See this speech in context