John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The level of fraud, relatively speaking, is minute in regard to the budget. To be correct, the Minister has one third of the overall State budget.

I wish to speak on the difference between fraud and error. We have fraud and corruption, which are intentional, and we have customer and official error. It would be very helpful in the debate on this if the Minister could categorise what is intentional and corrupt and break down the amounts with regard to the figures on customer error and errors on the official side, as they have been included in the savings. The Minister may not be in a position to do so now, but she may be able to at some point in the debate. There is a significant difference between fraud and error.

Moving into the various categories, how many examples of deliberate customer dishonesty are there, in terms of undeclared income or failing to report changes in material circumstances? How many deliberate attempts at exploiting the system arise from year to year? It would be helpful to know not just the monetary figures but the number of people involved. This should be set against the context of the complexity of the social protection system. Many people from various backgrounds find the social protection system difficult to navigate. It has nothing to do with their level of education, background, upbringing or environment. It can be very complex and people can make mistakes. A narrative on this would help. Available international research shows other errors. Errors can be caused because staff have excessive workloads and very simple administrative errors can happen. Errors can also arise because of the failure of a payment system or IT system, or problematic information management. We need to know far more about this, and perhaps the Minister can address these issues, to reassure people she is not acting as gamekeeper but that she wants to ensure people are protected. This is one of the reasons I made the points I did at the beginning of the debate, to which I will return. Claimant error is quite significant.

I would also like to know where is the fraud. Can it be broken down into particular categories? Is it predominantly in pensions? It does not seem to be, because internationally people over the age of 65 are least likely to commit fraud. Is it in income or employment supports? Is it with regard to illness, disabilities or in the area of carer's allowance? Does it concern children's payments or supplementary payments such as rent supplement?

The Minister will appreciate we are dealing with people who are in a vulnerable position, particularly new entrants to the social protection system. They can be at a new phase in their life, in terms of claiming the State contributory pension, but payments with regard to a disability, having lost a job or an illness benefit are related to a time in a person's life whey they are particularly vulnerable. This means we are dealing with the most vulnerable of people.

Perhaps I will table a parliamentary question on the system of departmental officers calling to people's homes and the rationale for this. People need to know about this and it needs to be explained to people that they can expect this, not as part of a systematic approach to fraud or error but as part of the process. The Department needs to call to a home to know people are real and exist and that they live at the address.

We support absolutely the concept of eliminating fraud from the system. We have demonstrated through parliamentary questions that the level of fraud in the system is quite minor, so only the names of those convicted of fraud in excess of €5,000 should be published on the register, and we would like the Minister to take this on board in her consideration.

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