Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Last week I spoke to a young engineer who has been forced to sign on for social welfare. I asked him how it is when one goes into the prefab. He said it sucks away one's soul. The way to tackle social welfare is by creating jobs and incentives for jobs which the Government has failed to do. Tomorrow, the budget will be announced. I listened to the senior official in the Department of Social and Family Affairs last evening talking about fraud of between 10% and 15% in some schemes. The lower end of that scale at 10% on a €20 billion spend is €2 billion. Even if it is not €2 billion - the Minister for Social and Family Affairs is shaking her head - it is €1.5 billion too many. Of the 640 officials working in fraud area of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, many are part time.

Tomorrow the Government will take money from carers, the disabled and genuine recipients of welfare who are on the bread line. The only category the Taoiseach said would not be touched was pensioners. In the area of social welfare, children do not commit fraud; pensioners, by and large, do not commit fraud; disabled persons and carers do not commit fraud. Where is it going on? The scams that were exposed last night indicate clearly the incompetence of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs. Some 11 years on we still have not arrived at a point where one can have a public service identity card. We have a situation where the PPS numbers and the computers in her Department are still not talking to each other. There are people who acquire and hire PPS numbers and claim jobseeker's allowance as exposed in that programme and fraud continues. Tomorrow in a draconian budget, because of Government incompetency, the Government will take away money from people who need it. Everybody agrees that to cheat in social welfare is robbery out of the taxpayers' pockets where that takes place deliberately and knowingly. The Government has failed to become serious about this issue. In many cases it is only a question of making people reapply to find out where they are.

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