Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's comment that this is a tiny fraction of the overall budget and that the majority of those who claim social welfare do so honestly and live very frugally if they are wholly dependent on social welfare. It is important to put it in that context, and it was only right and proper that the Minister did so.

One of my concerns is that once something has been written down and approved it becomes a strict rule, and flexibility in a situation where money is tight becomes much more difficult. I have no difficulty whatsoever with taking people engaged in fraud out of the system, because not only are they taking something that does not belong to them, but they are causing these headlines in the tabloid newspapers in some cases. I fully accept the point made by others that there is a difference between fraud and error. We have a very complex system of social protection with many different payments, so that often it is not easy for people to understand the process. As some people have said, the simplification of forms would go some way towards eliminating some of the errors.

I am concerned that the provision will be strictly and harshly applied, because the way people are being handled now in situations in which there may have been a discretionary payment would not have happened five or six years ago. It is difficult to describe without quoting individual cases, which I can give the Minister over the next few days if need be. In some situations a person who was working may have received a discretionary payment where his or her income increased and an overpayment occurred innocently. In other situations small amounts paid over a long period can make up a sizeable bill for somebody on a small income. I too reiterate the call for a humane approach to error, as opposed to deliberate fraud.

I would have liked to hear what the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, and others would have said about a more considered approach to this problem. It is really regrettable that we are not enriching the legislation by availing of the knowledge of people who are at the coalface and who could draw attention to things that might be problems but could be eliminated by tweaking this proposal. It is unsatisfactory to deal with this in such a rushed way.

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