Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the so-called welfare cheats campaign of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar. He made some outlandish claims that with this campaign, his Department will have made €500 million in savings so far. My colleague, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, looked into this to discover the savings claimed were based on estimates of what would have been saved over 52 weeks, or in some cases, over 136 weeks, however. In fact, the actual savings were more like €41 million.

This compares with €375 million of moneys owed by employers to the Social Insurance Fund. I have raised this issue in Commencement debates before and have asked the Department to explain why specific companies continue to trade while they owe moneys in this regard. I am still waiting for a response from the Department. When one takes into account the €375 million which the Department is not bothering to chase and the €13 billion owed by Apple which the Minister does not want to touch, it is quite clear that this is a nasty right-wing campaign from a man who wants to brand himself as the future leader of the Fine Gael Party. It reminds me of Norman Tebbit and Mrs. Thatcher. It is mean-spirited from the hard right of Fine Gael which, unfortunately, looks like it will lead the party into the future.

I would like to have the Minister for Social Protection into the House to explain his spurious claims about €500 million in savings. It is a disgraceful and shameful campaign, showing where Fine Gael stands. It wants to tramp on the little people and let the lads at the top off every time.