Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 17: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will improve expenditure control measures by requiring nursing homes to notify her Department once a patient has been in their full-time care for a month or more. [16978/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Entitlement to state pension contributory and non-contributory is not affected by a person's residency in a nursing home. However entitlement to household benefits, which comprise allowances for electricity or gas, telephone and free television licence, generally ceases when a person is a resident of a nursing home. There are a number of control measures in place to ensure the discontinuance of household benefits where entitlement ceases.

Data matching exercises between the Department and the various utilities identify cases for follow-up action where a change has occurred on a customer's bill, such as change of address.

Reports from the General Register Office notify the Department of deceased customers.

The household benefits computer system has recently been upgraded and now provides enhanced controls of claim management and processing with built-in validation and supports.

For example the system does not allow duplicate awards to utility numbers (such as meter point registration numbers) for overlapping periods; following the notification of an address change to the Department, the household benefit claim is automatically stopped and an advice notification is issued to the customer's new address.

Reviews are regularly undertaken in order to determine customers' continuing eligibility for household benefits. Letters issue to household benefit customers for completion and return within a specified time. Reviews include the re-assessment of household composition, income and re-confirming customers' primary residences. Follow-up action is taken where no reply is received from the customer or where the letter is returned undelivered. During 2008, 11,400 household benefit claims were terminated as a direct result of this ongoing review process.

The Department is currently reviewing the entitlement of up to 5,000 customers whose electricity usage is low. To date, some 700 household benefit claims have been stopped as part of this control review.

Control savings totalling €14.2 million was achieved under the Household Benefit scheme during 2008. It is intended to review 17,000 cases during 2009.

The Department is committed to ensuring that social welfare payments are available to those who are entitled to them and to ensuring that abuse of the system is prevented and dealt with effectively when detected.