Martin Brady (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister and his officials to the House. I welcome the increases in social welfare payments, which were also largely welcomed by CORI and Fr. Seán Healy at a recent Oireachtas committee meeting.

I also welcome the fact that many agencies of which I am aware, including the legal aid centre in Coolock, the family mediation centre in Raheny and the Money, Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, centres benefit from the fact that the Minister takes a keen personal interest in their work. I thank him for that. I recently attended a function at which the Minister opened a local call centre in the MABS office in Lombard Street. All of the aforementioned agencies play a very important role in our communities.

I welcome the fact that section 28 deals with the issue of pension fund trustees who need training. Last week I spoke to a trades union official about this issue and he made the point that mistakes have been made by pension fund trustees because they were not up to speed, which cost pension funds dearly, in some cases. I welcome what is a very important provision in the Bill.

Senator McFadden referred to the issues of planning and control, which are very important. One must have control and planning in place or abuse of the system will take place. I am glad something is being done in this regard.

The work of the Department of Social and Family Affairs impacts on nearly every person in the State. The Department administers some 50 different schemes and services, with over 1.5 million people receiving weekly payments. More than 570,000 families receive child benefit for 1.1 million children each month. The Minister has focused on child poverty and on the less well off in our society, including the elderly, which is to be welcomed.

Departmental expenditure in 2007 was €15.3 billion and the projected expenditure in 2008 is €17 billion. With this level of expenditure, I am pleased the Minister and the Department are concerned to ensure that fraudulent and other irregular payments are kept to the minimum. Given the level of expenditure, any incidence of fraud and error, however small, would result in a significant loss to the social welfare insurance fund, from which benefits are paid to the Exchequer and from which social payments are made. The prevention of fraud and abuse of the system is an important part of the day-to-day work of the Department and it is vital that we pay the right person the correct amount of money at the right time. We must ensure that systems and procedures are in place that prevent and minimise the risk of fraud and error at the initial claims stage.

The Department is currently checking the records of thousands of Irish pensioners living abroad, following concerns that welfare payments were made to people who have died. A total of 35,000 recipients of the contributory pension are living outside the State, mainly in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Canada. These countries do not automatically alert Irish authorities when an Irish citizen dies. The Government's contributory State pension is a social insurance payment made to people aged 66 or over, based on their PRSI contributions. A total of 237,000 are in receipt of the pension, 14% of whom are resident abroad.

I welcome the announcements made by the Minister and his Department regarding a number of control measures which are under way to ensure that errors or irregular payments are kept to a minimum. Officials conducted 345,000 welfare reviews last year, on a regular and targeted basis. Prosecutions are also an important deterrent of social welfare fraud. During 2007, 361 cases were referred to the Chief State Solicitor's office for prosecution, 243 of which were finalised in court. A total of 26 cases of personation were referred by social welfare inspectors to the Garda Síochána in 2007 for follow-up investigation and possible prosecution. These cases included people cashing a payment belonging to another person and people working under another's PPS number. The Department's programme for 2008 provides for some 463,000 reviews to be undertaken, including 123,000 medical reviews.

Non-Irish nationals in receipt of child benefit whose children reside abroad will be required to clarify every three months that they continue to be employed in this country. Other non-Irish nationals will be required to certify twice annually that they or their children continue to reside here. A life certification project will be undertaken on the 14% of recipients of the contributory State pension who reside abroad.

These safeguards must be put in place to ensure that everybody gets a fair share of the cake. We cannot give everybody their fair share if some are falsely receiving payments. Residency checks will be undertaken on non-Irish nationals in receipt of unemployment payments. The habitual residence requirement was first introduced as a qualifying condition for receipt of certain social welfare payments, with effect from 1 May, 2004. It was introduced in the context of the Government's decision to open the Irish labour market to workers from the ten new EU accession states, without the transitional limitations imposed by most of our EU neighbours. It is a very important condition which ensures that abuse is curtailed and minimised.

The habitual residence condition means that persons who have not worked in Ireland or who have little or no connection to this country cannot avail of assistance schemes or child benefit. In particular, a person who has not obtained permission to work here and who does not have the means to be fully self supporting will not satisfy the habitual residence condition. I have heard of cases where people came here for a few weeks at Christmas or at other holiday periods and attempted to claim social welfare benefits. That cannot be tolerated. Anybody who fails to satisfy the habitual residence condition and is suffering financial hardship can apply to the HSE for an exceptional needs payment under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme; such payments are not subject to the habitual residence condition. Non-nationals with no means of support may be assisted by the reception and integration agency to travel back to their own countries.

From 1 May 2004 to 31 December 2007, approximately 16,000 claims relating to complex habitual residency condition, HRC, issues affecting returning Irish emigrants were decided on. Of this, around 1,700 claims, about 10% of the total, were disallowed. There was some evidence of abuse of child benefit allowances for asylum seekers. A person still in the asylum process has not yet received permission to reside in Ireland and, therefore, cannot be considered to be resident. For this reason persons engaged in the asylum seeking process do not qualify for child benefit.

My colleague, Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill, asked me to seek clarification on a situation concerning a person who contacted him and said that on returning from the United States to live in Ireland he could not claim for six months. I do not believe that is the case but perhaps the Minister will clarify the matter.

I commend the Bill to the House.