Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Everybody agrees that it is desirable to recover social welfare overpayments. However, we also realise that the vast majority of overpayments made by the Department of Social Protection are as a result of honest mistakes made by the claimants and sometimes by the Department. Fraud accounts for a very small part of it. I have the percentages, but I do not have them to hand.

The Minister has said that since the provisions of the Social Welfare Act came into force the pace of recovering overpayments has increased. That might simply be due to the fact that the Department is collecting a higher percentage than it did hitherto. Generally, the amounts recovered hitherto were at a very low rate of €1 or €2 per week. Does the Minister have statistics for the average percentage being recovered at present? In other words, what percentage figure does the Department apply? Is it up to the full 15% or less? It might seem reasonable, but for somebody on the personal rate of jobseeker's allowance of €188 per week a deduction of 15% would amount to a great deal, particularly when the overpayment has occurred as a result of an honest mistake. Will the Minister give an indication as to the rate at which overpayments are being collected since the legislation came into force?

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