Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 360: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs when she will appoint social welfare inspectors to investigate and prevent fraud; if she will expand on the measures she has introduced in the past few months to combat fraud in border areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25050/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There are over 600 staff in the Department at local regional and national level whose work involves some element of control activity in relation to the prevention, detection, deterrence of fraud and pursuit and recovery of overpayments. This number includes 392 Inspectors serving in the Department of which 88 Inspectors are attached to the Department's Special Investigation Unit (SIU).

The Inspectors' remit includes investigation of claims to all means tested payments to ensure the conditions regarding entitlement are satisfied, the review of such payments to ensure ongoing entitlement to same and the combating of fraud and abuse of all the schemes administered by the Department. The SIU is the Department's dedicated fraud investigation unit, and Inspectors attached to the SIU are involved full time in control work and in the investigation of fraud, including the preparation of cases for legal proceedings where appropriate.

Arising from the increase in the Live Register and due to the extra demands being made on the resources of the Social Welfare Inspectorate, it was decided in January 2009 to increase the number of Inspectors by 16. More recently, it was decided in May to assign a further 24 Inspectors and the recruitment process for these posts is currently in train.

In relation to measures to combat fraud in border regions, the Special Investigation Unit is actively engaged in control work across the country, not just in border regions. Clearly, however, the border regions have the additional risk of people living in another jurisdiction claiming benefits in this country and activities in these areas incorporate measures to combat this. These measures include stronger preventative measures at claim stage in the case of people with a former address in Northern Ireland which involves a home visit in all such cases and a series of residency checks, during the lifetime of the claim. The Department also engages in multi-agency vehicle checkpoints with other agencies, including the Gardaí and Revenue Commissioners. These checkpoints can identify people travelling from across the border to claim in this jurisdiction.

I am committed to ensuring that effective controls against possible abuses of the Social Welfare system are in place. This issue is kept under constant review and additional measures will be implemented where required.