Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 47: To ask the Minister for Social Protection his Department's fraud savings target for 2010; the amount that has been saved to date [38981/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The prevention of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system is an integral part of the day to day work of the Department. A key objective of the Department's control strategy is to ensure that the right person is paid the right amount of money at the right time. A four-pronged control strategy has been adopted by the Department, namely, prevention of fraud and error at the initial claim stage; early detection through effective review of claims in payment; measures to deter fraud; and the pursuit and recovery of overpayments. The rapidly changing economic environment, with large increases in the number of people unemployed, poses challenges for the prevention and effective management of fraud and control. The Department's response to these challenges has been to introduce new, evidence-based measures to target control activity at high-risk categories of claimants.

Control savings are an estimate of the value of the various control activities across the schemes in payment, and represent an estimate of the value of prevented expenditure on fraudulent claims. Actual recoveries arise where the Department raises overpayments in individual cases. A target of €533 million was set for control savings in 2010. At the end of September this year, some €323 million in estimated control savings had been recorded. However, work-to-rule measures in the Department earlier this year affected the reporting of the value of control activities.

Control activity is being focused on the prevention of fraud and error at claim application stage, as this is the most cost-effective mechanism of reducing losses in social welfare schemes. This is what I call a gate-keeper effect. However, savings made at application stage cannot be estimated as the claim does not go into payment.

In my view welfare fraud is theft. It is a serious crime and the Department is doing everything it can to target the people who abuse the system. The consequences for social welfare fraud can be severe. Criminal prosecutions may be taken against persons who defraud the social welfare payment system and employers who fail to carry out their statutory obligations. Fraud detection measures have increased and improved significantly over the last number of years and will continue to be reviewed to prioritise resources in order to achieve results.

The Department is committed to ensuring that social welfare payments are available to those who are entitled to them. In this regard, the control programme of the Department is carefully monitored and the various measures are refined to ensure they remain effective.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I want to put a straight question to the Minister. In the week of the volcanic ash crisis this year, 3,500 fewer people signed on for the dole. I ask the Minister to confirm to the House and to the country that welfare tourism - that is, people flying in from other countries on cheap flights to claim social welfare - is not taking place. Did the Department investigate the reason 3,500 fewer people signed on during that crisis?

Why has the Minister reduced the projected savings due to reductions in fraud? He was hoping in 2009 to achieve savings of €616 million but this has been reduced in 2010 to €533 million. People are concerned about two different types of welfare fraud - one type in another jurisdiction not far from us and the other type perpetrated by people flying in from abroad. I want the country and the House to be reassured that this is not happening.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I answered that question comprehensively with facts and figures on Committee Stage of the Bill we debated during the early summer. However, I will send the detailed facts to the Deputy. These show that the week in question was not exceptional in terms of the number of people not signing on. Off the top of my head, around 90% of the people who did not sign on that week were Irish. Of the rest, some of the applicants were from faraway parts of the world, such as Pakistan, India, Australia and America, which does not fit in with the "cheap flights" idea. If anything, the figures from that week show that few people were discommoded by the ash cloud. The data shows that it is not true that thousands of people are flying in to collect social welfare payments. All the evidence is that because people must now collect unemployment payments every week - they must physically attend the post office and provide their identities to the postmaster or postmistress - that is not the area in which the greatest savings are to be made.

As the Deputy knows, we have done a lot of work on control savings. As I said in my reply, in the early part of the year the control measures were in place and savings were being made but, because of the industrial action, these savings were not reported. It did not make any difference to the savings that were made on the ground, but it did make a difference to the reporting, and that has affected the figures.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am not sure the Minister has answered the question or that he has reassured this House or the country that fraud was not going on.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Allow the Deputy to ask the question.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am very worried. I asked the Minister whether there was an investigation by his Department; I hope there was.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am glad. My next question follows on from this. When will we have a system of identity cards for those collecting social welfare in order to prevent fraud? We need to do something. Money is valuable now and people are under extreme pressure. Those who need social welfare should get it, but those who are defrauding the social welfare system are taking money from the Minister's pocket and from everybody else's pockets. I want to make sure that social welfare goes to the people who should have it.

I ask the Minister for a breakdown of the savings made in the area of fraud and overpayment. How much of the overpayments were as a result of mistakes by the Department and how much were due to fraud?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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On the Deputy's first question, I will obtain the information for him. I hope that when he gets the information he will consider it factually and objectively.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Of course I will.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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He will see that the story is not as it has been portrayed. We are very keen to eliminate fraud and, as the Deputy will be aware, we have made substantial savings through, for example, the fraud control measure on child benefit this year. I will do anything I can to try to eliminate fraud.

The Deputy asked about the identity card. I would hope to have the first of them by the end of the year and to introduce it early next year. It will be a chip and PIN card with a high-quality photograph - a similar arrangement to that which exists in a passport. However, it is not strictly speaking an identity card and perhaps we should not use that term; it is a social services card. While it will enable people to avail of State services, it has nothing to do with the justice system so a garda will not be able to stop someone on the street looking for-----

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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No, but we want to know-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Please, let the Minister finish.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I believe it will stop many of the abuses that are taking place and is a necessary step in the right direction.

We are also stepping up on the national employment action programme. If one listens to what is being said on the street, there is a temptation for people to work and draw at the same time. We need to activate people back into work and to close down on that.

What was the Deputy's final question?

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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How many are Department errors and how many are fraud? The Minister can send the details to me later.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is very hard at times to identify whether-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Minister might revert to the Deputy.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I will revert to him, but I must warn him that it is very hard to know in some cases whether it was genuine error or whether someone purposely gave wrong information. Where we know it is genuine fraud, we prosecute and if it is a genuine error, obviously we do not.