Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

I realise it is late and the Minister has been in the House for a long time. She may be a little tired and not listening to precisely what is being said on this side of the House. I have heard no one in the Chamber condoning fraud of any character. To imply that is disingenuous. Fraud, even only one occurrence, would not be condoned by anybody.

The point being made on this side of the House is that there is already a facility and power to deal with cases where fraud occurs. The Minister made the point that she is only referring to claims where a person got something he or she was not entitled to. None of us is saying people should keep such money. However, there are many reasons that an overpayment occurs. There need not be a wilful intent to withhold information. They may be a lack of understanding or an incompletely filled out form.

The Department has staff employed by the State who have a lifetime of experience in dealing with these cases. They are best placed to investigate these instances. Rather than adequately staffing departmental offices and equipping staff, we have a ludicrous public sector recruitment embargo while those offices are struggling to keep up with the level of claims and to monitor form filling, applications and claims. The Government would be better served by lifting the employment embargo, adequately equipping departmental offices, increasing the numbers employed there and empowering them to do the job for which they already have a legislative basis.

Where someone is overpaid under one heading even though he or she may be entitled to a payment under a different heading, section 18 disallows the deciding officer from offsetting one against the other. No matter how one dresses that up, it amounts to a fine or penalty and the person is forced to repay more money than he or she owed. The Minister seems to imply that taxpayers and citizens see the root cause of the problems in our social welfare system as the recipients of social welfare. The Minister later contradicted herself by saying there is only a very small number of fraudulent claims, which is the case. The Minister should empower her people to deal with the small amount of fraud, based on existing legislation. She should not take money from people on the double and treble and force her staff to waste resources by being tied up in unnecessary appeals, which could be avoided if there were adequate resources on the front line.

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