Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

A social welfare overpayment arises where a person has been in receipt of money to which he or she was not entitled. In such cases, the person concerned has a liability to repay the money. When deductions are being implemented from ongoing social welfare entitlements, the person is notified in writing of the proposed amount to be deducted and provided with the opportunity to detail any circumstances he or she feels may be relevant to the rate of recovery proposed. Any information received from the person is considered in deciding on the amount of the deduction.

The total amount of overpayments in 2011 was approximately €92 million. Of this, almost €35 million was due to fraud, around €40 million due to customer error, approximately €6 million related to departmental error and €11 million was in respect of estate cases. Estate cases arise where undisclosed assets of customers, usually pensioners, come to light after their deaths. The total value of overpayments in 2012 was €97 million, broken down as follows: almost €41 million was due to fraud, €36 million due to customer error, €8 million due to departmental error and €12 million was in respect of overpayments from estate cases. In 2013, total overpayments amounted to approximately €127 million. Of this, almost €62 million was due to fraud, over €43 million was due to customer error, approximately €7 million related to departmental error and €15 million was from estate cases.

It should be borne in mind that 95% of the value of social welfare overpayments are as a result of failure on the part of claimants to inform the Department of a change in circumstances or of their full circumstances . More than half of these are suspected to be fraudulent. Approximately 5% of the value of overpayments are due to departmental error. I am not in a position to provide details on overpayments in 2014 or 2015 as these figures form part of the statutory accounts of the Department and are currently being audited by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

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