Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The new strategy will build on the success of the old strategy, which saw control savings of €2.5 billion over the lifetime of the last strategy, so I am not sure where the Deputy's reference to €1 million came from. Overall, the key outputs from the 2014-18 strategy were as follows: more than 4 million control reviews carried out; €2.5 billion in savings; 94,000 reports from members of the public in regard to potential fraud processed; €400 million worth of overpayments recovered; almost 190 suspected identity fraud cases identified; and almost 1,500 cases referred for prosecution. I have a detailed response as to how the control numbers are calculated and if that is of interest to the Deputy, I will give it to her as I do not have time to read it out.

We look at all schemes every year and we find there are anomalies on different schemes. There are different criteria for different schemes so I am assuming that what the Deputy is alluding to is some sort of universal payment which would make it easier for people.

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