Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last week, I had an exchange with the Taoiseach on the attempt by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar, to massively exaggerate the amount of money which was lost on welfare fraud. Of course, no fraud is justified and the State has an obligation to catch fraud but, equally, the Minister of the day has an obligation to be balanced in his approach. When I mentioned that the claim to be saving €500 million was bogus, the Minister stated loudly here that he had misled no one and that the figure concerned both fraud and administrative errors.

The true figure is that savings of €41 million have been projected for this year on fraud and other savings seem to be due to overpayments for a variety of reasons. To be fair to the Minister, I went back and checked his statements. The campaign he launched refers solely to fraud. Its slogan is "Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All". At the launch the only figure mentioned was €500 million. The Minister stated fraud can cost the State tens if not hundreds of millions.

We all understand there is a campaign under way and it is important in terms of the Minister's last minute attempt to create some form of policy record for himself, but the facts show he was being a lot less than the straight talker he claims to be. Given the Taoiseach's role as chairperson of the social policy committee, will he tell us if the committee signed off on this misleading campaign, which estimated that €500 million has been lost in fraud-----

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