Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Comptroller and Auditor General is using a fraud and error survey to determine that overpayments were made, although the survey was done to identify the high-risk groups in order to make savings in the future. I am not saying no overpayments were made; of course they were, and we always try to get them back. However, the Comptroller and Auditor General was using a survey that was designed for a completely different purpose to extrapolate figures. It is not true that he said overpayments were made in a quarter of cases. That only referred to a particular table in the report, which does not show the proportion of overpayments in all welfare claims reviewed.

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