Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Tomorrow the Minister for Finance, on behalf of the Government, will read out his statement that will purportedly seek €4,000 million in reductions and cuts. An element of that will deal with the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

In a revealing programme last night on RTE television, it was estimated that social welfare fraud is running at 10%, leading one to believe the fraud is of the order of €2 billion per year, half of what the Minister for Finance is looking for in his overall cuts. It appears as if the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Minister for Social and Family Affairs have been entirely incompetent in dealing with the scale of this robbery from the taxpayer's pocket. Despite the litany of actions the Minister for Social and Family Affairs talks about having implemented, fraud remains on a vast scale.

As Deputy Naughten pointed out this morning, 11 years ago it was intended to introduce a public services identity card. Recommendations were made by him to transfer surplus officials from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food into the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report last year indicated that officers dealing with fraud are dealing with application forms for social welfare in the first instance.

Can I ask the Taoiseach, given the range of categories that apply in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, having discussed this at Cabinet, where is this fraud taking place in the Department? Where is the €2 billion in fraud being committed?

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