Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

There are more than 600 staff working in areas related to control of fraud and abuse of the welfare system. Between January and the end of October this year, more than 600,000 individual claims were reviewed. The level of fraud on most schemes is very low. As reported by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the percentage of expenditure resulting from fraud identified in the Department's fraud and error surveys was 0% for pensioners, 0.1% for illness benefit, 0.8% for family income supplement, 1.8% for child benefit and 2.3% for disability allowance.

Nonetheless, the Department is conscious that in a small number of schemes, some groups of claimants present a higher risk than others and we have made changes to address that. For example, a number of individual surveys have highlighted a high level of risk that non-Irish nationals could claim welfare payments to which they are no longer entitled after they have left the State. Having identified that risk, the Department has sought to minimise it by removing the option to receive payments by electronic fund transfer, EFT, for new claimants of jobseeker payments. Claimants must attend in person at the post office each week thus confirming their continued residency in the country. Their claim is automatically suspended where two consecutive payments are not collected.

Targeted control measures have been also put in place for child benefit claims from non-Irish nationals and for other customer segments in schemes where any form of high risk has been identified. Since the Department started the cross-Border operations, the percentage year-on-year increase in people signing on for jobseeker's payments in virtually all of the Border offices has substantially reduced. Fraud detection systems have been also improved through data matches with organisations such as the Revenue Commissioners on commencement of employment data, the General Register Office on marriage and death information, and many other organisations including the Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Education and Science and other State bodies. In addition, a data matching programme is now in place to ensure that relevant information available in one area of the Department of Social and Family Affairs is applied to all schemes.

I assure the House that the Department continues to prioritise using every available means to crack down on welfare fraud. It is correct, especially in the context of having to make cuts in social welfare, that we should accelerate our efforts in this area. The budget includes funding of €7 million to allow the roll-out of the new public service card to commence. The card will contain a photograph and signature and will help to combat fraud.

I wish to mention one other initiative focused on getting people back into work, namely, the employer jobs, PRSI, incentive scheme. Our main priority is to stabilise the finances to ensure we can protect existing jobs and get people off the live register and back into employment. In addition to the wide range of employment support initiatives already in place, a new jobs stimulus measure is being introduced in 2010. Under the employer jobs, PRSI, incentive scheme, where an employer creates a new job and takes on a person who has been unemployed for six months or more the employer will be fully exempted from the liability to pay PRSI for the first year of that employment. That will give employers an 8% to 10% saving on employment costs for each new job created. Full details of the initiative will be announced early in 2010 and will be included in the next social welfare Bill.

I will move on now to the main provisions of the Bill. Sections 3 and 4 and Schedules 1 and 2 provide for reductions ranging from €7.50 to €8.50 in the weekly personal rates of payments, excluding payments to recipients age 66 or over and recipients of invalidity pension age 65. Those sections also provide for reductions of between €5.50 and €5.90 in the weekly rate for qualified adults under age 66 and for an increase of €3.80 per week in the rate payable in respect of a qualified child, bringing the rate to €29.80 per week. Those changes take effect on different dates for different payments in the period 30 December 2009 to 8 January 2010.

Section 5 provides for an increase of €6 per week in all family income supplement, FIS, weekly earnings thresholds, effective from 1 January 2010.

Section 6 provides for a reduced personal rate of jobseeker's allowance of €100 per week for persons aged 20 and 21 years and €150 per week for persons aged 22 to 24, inclusive. It also provides for a reduced rate of €100 in respect of the qualified adult of a jobseeker's allowance recipient aged 20 and 21 where the couple do not have dependent children. These changes will apply to new claims for jobseeker's allowance made on or after 1 January 2010.

Section 7 provides for a reduction of €16 per month in the lower and higher rates of child benefit from 1 January 2010 bringing the rates to €150 and €187, respectively, per month.

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