Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It was worth mentioning in my reply that people are making reports of possible fraud to the Department because it shows the value people are placing on money. Even if many of those who are the subjects of such reports are not fraudulently claiming, the State saves money from the ones who are, so it is still valuable. What people generally do not realise is that there can be quite a high disregard of earnings in some schemes; thus, a lone parent can earn up to €146 per week and still claim the full allowance, but the person complaining may not realise this.

With regard to the target, we had achieved €312 million in savings through fraud prevention measures by the end of August. It is difficult to say what our control savings will be by the end of the year, but the target is high, at €616.5 million. To be honest, I cannot see us reaching that target. The number of reviews has gone up, but the savings from those reviews have not been as great as expected. We have saved more on child benefit, carer's allowance, family income supplement and illness benefit than we had expected, but we have not quite reached the target for unemployment benefits. Perhaps people are not able to get work. In addition, it has been indicated to me that people are now working from within their own homes. One can be a professional person working on a computer while claiming benefits, but an inspector has no right to go into one's home and check, although he or she could go into a building site, for example.

I am anxious to progress with the PPS card, about which I am currently in negotiation with the Department of Finance, because it would be a wise way to cut expenditure. The new PPS card will have detail in it which is personal to the recipient.

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