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

In a previous written reply the Minister told me that the breakdown was between overpayments and pure fraud necessitating a prosecution and that the figure attributable to pure fraud was €41 million out of the sum of €506 million. I have some concerns about the nature of the anti-fraud campaign and the follow-up which we will discuss tomorrow at the social welfare committee, particularly the publicising of lists. I do not know how this will prevent future potential social welfare fraudsters. A comparison has been made between the proposed list and the Revenue list, but there is a fundamental difference between the two. Most Revenue defaulters do not go through the courts; there is a settlement with the Revenue Commissioners. If the list is not published, people will never know that the settlement took place. In the case of social welfare fraudsters, people are invariably prosecuted and their cases go through the courts. The courts are public and, as the Minister will be aware, cases are always widely publicised at national level and receive much publicity at local level. There are many other criminal activities such as murder, fraud unrelated to social welfare payments, armed robbery, etc. When these cases take place, they are all publicised, but if subsequent publicisation would deter people from committing such crimes in the future, perhaps it is a system we might use across the board.

See this speech in context