John Kelly (Labour)

I am glad Senator Byrne touched on social welfare fraud. A couple of weeks ago, I dropped some kind of clanger in the House when I suggested we should introduce a method of fingerprinting to combat social welfare fraud. As a result, great debate was generated in the media over recent weeks. There is an appetite to clamp down considerably on social welfare fraud in areas where it did not exist in the past. One will hear a lot more whistleblowing because people are now looking at their financial circumstances and realise the only way we can come up with money is to clean up our act. We cannot put a figure on what social welfare fraud is costing us at present. If the Minister for Social Protection suggests it is responsible for 3% of the budget, which would amount to €600 million, I suggest it may cost up to €1 billion per year.

Over the weekend I heard some absolutely scary stories that I will not tell right now. I hope the Minister can be invited to the House to have an open debate on social welfare fraud. A form of biometric fingerprinting is being used in other jurisdictions and we must consider it with a view to saving money to provide services we have been talking about cutting over recent years because of the downturn in the economy. By making savings, we could have money to invest in the health service and all the other services for which we do not have money at present. I ask that the Minister for Social Protection be invited to the House for an open debate on this. This is something I want to follow through to the end and I know the Minister is also committed to doing so. I hope all sides of the House support it. If we save money we will not shut down our hospitals.