Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 51: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if, in the course of investigations into social welfare applications it is considered appropriate that copies of bank statements are obtained directly from the applicant's bank without their knowledge or consent in a situation in which the applicant is then charged by the bank for issuing such copies; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16809/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Applications for means tested payments are investigated by staff in the Department. In the ordinary course of events, a means assessment involves an interview of a claimant by a Social Welfare Inspector, in which they will be asked, inter alia, for details of any bank accounts they hold.

Where an applicant states he or she has one or more bank accounts, there are two possible courses of action open to the inspector; one is to request the applicant to provide copies of the relevant bank statements, the other is to ask the applicant to sign an authorisation permitting the bank concerned to provide the information required directly to the investigating officer. The first option, while it will provide accurate details of any accounts disclosed, will not provide any guarantee that the account(s) disclosed represent all of an applicants' accounts. Nonetheless, in many instances this option is used by an inspector.

There are, however times when an inspector will require further information or may need to establish from the bank that they have details of all accounts held in the person's name. In these circumstances, the inspector will ask the customer to sign a form of authorisation as described above. An inspector will always get the authority of the customer before making any inquiry of a bank.