Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Question 1: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of welfare cases reviewed by her in 2009, 2010 and to date in 2011; the amount saved by anti-fraud measures in 2009, 2010 and to date in 2011; and the number of staff overall who have been investigating fraud in her Department in 2009, 2010 and to date in 2011. [29194/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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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, which processes in excess of 2 million claims each year and makes payments to some 1.4 million people every week. However, it is important to recognise that the majority of people receive the entitlement due to them.

In terms of control work, in 2009 nearly 751,000 cases were reviewed by the Department and some €484 million was recorded as savings achieved. In 2010, more than 929,000 cases were recorded as reviews and some €483 million was recorded as being achieved in control savings. However, due to industrial action, the total 2010 control savings and reviews were not fully recorded. In the period January to August 2011, nearly 401,000 cases were reviewed and some €388 million control savings have been recorded. The savings achieved to date this year are substantially ahead of the €281 million achieved in the same period last year. Under the fraud initiative 2011– 13, there is a provisional target of achieving €625 million in control savings in 2012. This is an increase of €85 million on the 2011 target.

Control savings are an estimate of savings from various control activities across the schemes in payment, but are not actual moneys recovered by the Department. If this control work did not take place, social welfare expenditure would increase by this level over time.

Control activity is also focused on the prevention of fraud and error at new claim stage. This is the most cost effective mechanism of reducing losses through fraud and error in social welfare schemes. Savings made from the prevention of fraud and error at application stage cannot be estimated as the claims in question will not go into payment.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

There are some 620 staff whose work includes control activities. This figure includes staff involved in the processing and payment of new claims, including staff in investigation units who work at local, regional and headquarters levels. Some 200 of those staff work full-time on control work, while the other 420 staff are responsible both for routine investigations in relation to new claims on the various schemes and for reviews of customers' claims. Of the 200 inspectors, 89 are in the special investigation unit, SIU, whose exclusive function is fraud prevention, detection and deterrence.

I recently launched a new fraud initiative 2011– 13, which is aimed at putting in place a range of actions to combat fraud and abuse of the social welfare system and to ensure public confidence and trust in the system. There are a number of themes and approaches in this plan as follows: greater inter-agency co-operation among public bodies at national and local level to combat fraud and abuse; greater presence of social welfare inspectors on the ground; the targeting of sectors where fraud is more likely to occur; new ways to recover overpayments to be examined; increased penalties for those operating in the hidden economy to be examined; greater liaison at national and, in particular, at local level with employers, their representative organisations and businesses generally to ensure good information exchange on emerging fraudulent trends in the labour market and to maintain a fair and level playing pitch for all enterprises; the roll-out of the new public service card; and the enhancement of the technical and auditing capacity of the Department through modern data matching and data interrogation techniques.

I consider that the combination of these elements of the plan will lead to more focused and efficient activity and to more trust in and credibility of the social protection system. This fraud initiative is a work in progress and covers the period 2011 to 2013. It will be reviewed periodically and updated, as required, given emerging trends.

Social welfare fraud undermines public confidence in the entire system as well as being unfair to other recipients of social welfare payments, businesses run on a legitimate basis and taxpayers. As Minister, I am very conscious of the need to protect public money and I am determined to ensure that abuse of the system is prevented and is dealt with effectively when detected.

Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her response. Am I correct in saying there has been no major dividend in savings this year? Was the target inherited by the Minister not €540 million for this year? Last year's target was €550 million and €483 million was recorded as achieved, up to the time industrial action curtailed the activities. Has that industrial action continued this year and is that the reason this year's target may not be achieved?

There seems to be no major increase in the number of cases under review. In 2009, there were approximately 750,000 cases reviewed and to August this year, 401,000 have been reviewed. In March of this year there were 89 inspectors targeting this area. Are there more now considering what the Minister has been saying in recent months with regard to the plan she has brought forward to target this area specifically and to make savings which might allow her to retain the rates of payment? Will she elaborate on this? While the Minister intends the targeted review to be a success, based on these figures and the comparison with recent years, is it as successful as she thought it would be?

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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We have figures up to August, as the year is not complete yet. There were 401,000 reviews up to that date and these resulted in some €388 million in control savings. This compares with €281 million achieved in the same period last year. Therefore, the staff of the Department are doing very well on this. The reviews are yielding more control savings. We will know the total outturn by the end of the year, but the review is yielding significant savings.

With regard to the inspectors and fraud, the work of approximately 620 staff includes control activity. This includes staff involved in the processing and payment of new claims, including staff in investigations who work at local and regional headquarters level. Some 200 of those staff work full-time on control work while the other 420 staff are responsible for both routine investigations relating to new claims and the reviews of customer claims. Of the 200 inspectors, 89 are in the special investigation unit, the exclusive function of which is fraud prevention, detection and deterrence. The Deputy will recall that in the debate on the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill before the summer recess, I sought and got from the Dáil additional powers relating to multi-agency investigations and co-operation. We want to have a greater presence of social welfare inspectors on the street, as it were. For example, next year we propose to increase significantly the number of visits to employers for the purpose of deterring black economy activity, where people in employment are not recorded as working.

Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Despite the apparent effort by the Department to beef-up the sector and to tackle this issue, the numbers do not seem to support this effort. The number of staff, 620, is little different from the 600 in 2009 and the number of inspectors remains the same as it was in March. The yield in savings is very similar to last year and we wonder if we will meet the target. The Minister said that industrial action last year had curtailed the figure, but that has not been the case this year. The review is not yielding the results we hoped it would.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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What is different is that we are targeting the use of the investigators. In other words, they are targeting areas where there may be evidence to suggest there are problems. This has been a particular feature of the work of the Department recently and I have stressed that this is important. We have continued to conduct a huge number of reviews, which involves writing to people to check whether they are living at the address given and so on. Most people are honest and, therefore, modern audits target the areas where there is reason to suspect there may be abuse. That is where I would like to see the emphasis. We are targeting for next year a significant increase in control savings, but we also want to target specifically areas where we have reason to believe there may be fraud. Up to September, some 12,000 members of the public had made contact with the Department pointing out areas of abuse of the system. They are not always right but it is interesting information.