Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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1. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on the fact that her Department has been pursuing some social welfare recipients to repay overpayments that occurred as far back as the 1980s where there was no question of fraud; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43514/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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It is the Department's policy to investigate and pursue all overpayments so as to protect public moneys to the greatest extent possible. People who have received an overpayment from the Department have a liability under law to refund the amounts involved. They have received moneys to which they were not entitled. In 2012, overpayments amounting to €97 million were recorded. This represents 0.47% of overall annual departmental expenditure. Recoveries in 2012 amounted to €53.5 million, which is considerably more than what was recovered previously.

Until the introduction of recent legislation, the Department was limited in its capacity to recover overpayments without the person’s agreement. For this reason, overpayments often remained outstanding for a long period of time. Deputies from all sides of the House who have been members of the Committee of Public Accounts will know that the Comptroller and Auditor General regularly took the Department to task about not having an active payment recovery system. The Social Welfare Act 2012 provides for greater recovery levels of up to 15% from the personal rate of a person’s social welfare payment without consent but excluding any payments received for dependent adults or children. This amendment means that the Department is now in a position to ensure that all debt-holders in receipt of a payment are repaying their debts. In addition, in order to improve the capacity to recover overpayments from persons no longer dependent on social welfare, the Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2013 provides for the introduction of notice of attachment powers for the recovery of overpayments directly from a person’s earnings or from monies held by him or her in financial institutions.

I believe that having effective debt recovery is essential in deterring fraudulent activity. It creates a climate in which people who have been overpaid know that they have a responsibility to repay and that the Department will take the necessary steps to effect recovery. Both of the changes I have outlined above will significantly enhance the Department’s ability to pursue overpayments from people who are not making efforts to repay their debts.

My Department’s policy is to ensure that every effort is made to prevent overpayments, but if they occur, they are regarded as a debt to the Exchequer and every effort must be made to recover the amounts due. A social welfare overpayment will remain on record until it is fully recovered. Currently, the Department, unlike the Revenue Commissioners, does not apply interest or penalties on the amounts owing.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I want to stress that I am not talking here about cases involving fraud. As far as I am concerned, people who have defrauded the Department should be pursued to the ends of the earth. I posed this question because I have had a large volume of queries on this recently, as have other Deputies from all sides of the House, who have brought them to my attention. People on social welfare, generally elderly people, are getting letters from the Department telling them that they had an overpayment from ten, 15 or in some cases, 25 years ago. The letters state that the individual owes the Department X amount and essentially say "Please pay up immediately (a cheque will do) or tell us what arrangements you want to make to pay." To give the Minister one example, a constituent of mine was contacted by the Department of Social Protection regarding an alleged overpayment of jobseeker's allowance at different times between 5 January 1987 and 16 May 1989. That is 26 years ago.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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Deputy, there is a time limit of one minute for supplementary questions.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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The person in question is not exactly in a very good position to dispute what happened 26 years ago. Is there a legal basis for this? Normally, when one is trying to recover debt, there is a six-year statutory limit. One cannot pursue the debt after a period of six years has elapsed. What is the legal basis for the Department's decision to go after debt that arose more than six years ago?

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department is not in a position to write off overpayments. This is something that Deputies who are members of the Committee of Public Accounts might take up with the Comptroller and Auditor General because, in its annual report, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General calculates all overpayments going back into the mists of time. There is no arrangement to write off overpayments. The annual report is regularly very critical of the accounting officer of the Department if overpayments are not recovered.

In respect of the current situation, I can furnish the Deputies with a table if they are interested. The table indicates that overpayments in 2012 amounted to €97 million. Of that, suspected fraud accounted for €41 million, while customer third-party error - that is, instances in which people made mistakes and there was no apparent deception - accounted for €35.8 million. Departmental error amounted to €7.6 million, and moneys recovered from the estates of deceased persons where it emerged from wills and so forth that the means and savings of the individual exceeded the qualifying criteria for certain Departmental payments amounted to €12.5 million.

Under the current arrangements, the Department writes to the person who has been overpaid and that person has the right to make representations. We take many factors into account when seeking to recover overpayments, as Deputy O'Dea knows well. He has, for example, made representations on behalf of constituents who were ill and we have suspended the collection of monies owing.

The Department is not at liberty to do what the Deputy is suggesting - namely, to write off the debt. However, we do try to make the repayment recovery schedule proportionate and to take into account the person's circumstances, based on the information he or she makes available to us.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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The time has expired for this question.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I am not suggesting that the Department write off debt. I am simply asking, in the case of my constituent, what the Department was doing for the past 26 years. Why come forward 26 years later? Second, is there a legal basis for doing that? I came across a case recently in which a person was told that he had an overpayment of €133 from several years ago and the Department has insisted, ignoring all representations, that he pay it back at the rate of €21 per week, which is pretty punitive.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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We are over time.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I urge the Deputy to bring the details of that specific case to my office and I will examine it. The Department makes variable arrangements depending on the circumstances of the individual. Prior to the introduction of new legislation, the Department could only collect €2 per week from people who had been overpaid. Frankly, some of the people involved in fraud were paying back €2 per week and could swagger down the street while their neighbours were paying tax and PRSI. Not only were they giving the two fingers to the Department of Social Protection, they were also giving two fingers to the decent people living around them. They committed fraud but the Department was limited in its ability to recover the money. Some of the fraud amounted to €20,000 or €30,000, so the Deputy can do the sums on that.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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We are way over time now. We have spent nine minutes on this question but there is a limit of six. There are only 30 minutes in total for Priority Questions, so it is two minutes for the Minister to answer and a minute each for supplementary questions and replies. I ask everyone to stick to that.