Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 23, 34 and 37 together.

The prevention of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system is an integral part of the day-to-day work of the Department which processes in excess of 2 million claims each year and makes payments to approximately 1.4 million people every week at a cost of approximately €21 billion per annum. However, it is important to recognise that the vast majority of people receive the entitlements due to them.

For 2011, my Department has a target of reviewing 780,000 individual welfare claims and achieving €540 million in control savings. At the end of October, approximately €536 million in estimated control savings were reported and more than 746,000 reviews have been carried out. For 2012, the target for control savings is provisionally set at €625 million, an increase of €85 million on the 2011 target.

Control savings are an estimate of the value of the various control activities across the schemes in payment. Control savings are not actual moneys recovered by the Department, but they are a good indication of the increase in social welfare expenditure that would occur without these control activities taking place. They are, therefore, an estimate of future expenditure avoided. These savings arise as a result of control activity on claims in payment and from inspections of employers. These activities also have deterrent or knock-on effects which are not readily quantifiable in monetary terms. They are used as a performance indicator for year-on-year activities. As control savings are already factored into the budget estimates, the reductions in expenditure that the Department is expected to achieve in the forthcoming budget will come on top of the existing fraud control measures of €625 million.

I recently launched a new fraud initiative which aims to put in place a range of actions to combat fraud and abuse of the social welfare system and ensure public confidence in the integrity of the system is improved. A key priority is to ensure fraudulent activity in the social welfare system is vigorously prevented and combated. Social welfare fraud undermines public confidence in the entire system. Deputies may be aware of the large increase in the volume of social welfare inspections of employers and inspectors' visits to people in receipt of a social welfare income and inspectors examining information supplied to the Department by members of the public.

See this speech in context