Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 101: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the manner in which the additional social welfare inspectors she has referred to will be recruited and the manner in which a person can apply for the position and the qualifications required. [30656/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I have no current plans to appoint additional social welfare inspectors to the Department. However, I recently launched a new Fraud Initiative aimed at ensuring an integrated approach to the prevention, deterrence and detection of social welfare abuse across the social welfare system. I intend to implement this initiative through the refocusing of current inspector resources towards the control of social welfare fraud.

Activation and Control Teams (ACTs) are established across the Department's regional network. As part of the fraud initiative, and in order to ensure an integrated approach to fraud control, these teams will be enhanced by the integration of the community welfare officers and FÁS staff into the Department. These control teams will now comprise social welfare inspectors, facilitators, special investigation unit staff, community welfare officers, FÁS and social welfare local office staff. The ACTs will help to ensure that all activation and control activities, established and new, across all schemes, are being vigorously applied and augmented with targeted specific approaches based on local knowledge and circumstances. There will be a single customer view, from a control perspective, by having these former agencies amalgamated into the Department and as members of the ACTs.