Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a good working relationship between the Department of Social Protection and An Garda Síochána. We closely co-operate with each other in the context of multi-agency operations and investigations to combat social welfare fraud.

A proposal for the secondment of 20 gardaí to the Department of Social Protection to assist with fraud investigation work is currently being progressed with the Department of Justice and Equality and An Garda Síochána. This pilot scheme has been approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It involves the secondment of the 20 officers to my Department's special investigation unit, our key unit in investing fraud. I hope it will be a significant and important resource. The secondment will be for 12 months and the gardaí seconded will undertake the full range of investigative duties in detecting and combating social welfare fraud. It is also envisaged that they will retain their powers as gardaí for the duration of the secondment. They will be appointed with powers under the Social Welfare Acts to enable them to work with officers from the special investigation unit and they will perform all relevant social welfare fraud investigations.

As part of the initiative to prevent and detect fraud, the Department participates in multi-agency vehicle checkpoints, MAVCs, on an ongoing basis with other agencies, particularly the Garda Síochána and Revenue. For example, recently in the mid-west, Deputy O'Dea's region, there was an MAVC aimed at road haulage operators. This checkpoint, which lasted, as is typical, for two hours, resulted in the detection of three cases of concurrent working and claiming of social welfare payments with consequent savings of €67,000.

These checkpoints are carried out from time to time and are aimed at road haulage operators, those driving commercial vehicles, and taxis. Earlier this year there was a specific examination of persons involved in transport in the scrap metal sector.

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