John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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174. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the progress that has been made to date in the recovery of social welfare payments which have been found to have been fraudulently procured from her Department; the moneys that have been recovered since she took office; her views on the effectiveness of the introduction of biometric public service cards in stamping out fraudulent claims; the inroads that have been made with regard to the setting up of the new Garda unit within her Department; if this unit is now fully operational; the level of access to public service records this unit will be afforded; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40253/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department’s policy is to ensure that every effort is made to prevent overpayments, but if they occur, they are regarded as a debt to the Exchequer and every effort must be made to recover the amounts due. It is the Department’s policy to investigate and pursue all overpayments so as to protect public monies to the greatest extent possible. The Department has a responsibility to ensure that all overpayments are refunded in full. People who have received an overpayment from the Department have a liability under law to refund the amounts involved. (Section 338 of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 2005 (as amended) refers). They have received monies to which they were not entitled. In that regard, the Department is fully committed to recovering 100% of all overpayments arising, whether as a result of fraud or error. The Department does not apply interest or penalties on the amounts owing.

Debt recoveries are not categorised by whether the original overpayment was fraud or error. In 2011, the total value of recoveries was €51.5m while €53.5m was recovered in 2012 and, in 2013, recoveries were made to the value of €70.7m.

Until the introduction of recent legislation, the Department was limited in its capacity to recover overpayments without the person’s agreement. For this reason, overpayments often remained outstanding for a long period of time. Since these legislative changes, the Department can now recovery levels of up to 15% from the personal rate of a person’s social welfare payment without consent. In addition, in order to improve the capacity to recover overpayments from persons no longer dependent on social welfare, legislation was introduced that provides for the Notice of Attachment powers for the recovery of overpayments directly from a person’s earnings or from monies held by them in financial institutions or other state payments.

These amendments mean that the Department is now in a position to ensure, as far as practical, that all debt-holders are repaying their debt. The rate a debt is recovered differs from case to case.

The Public Services Card (PSC) has been introduced to enable individuals gain access to public services more efficiently and with a minimum of duplication of effort, while at the same time preserving their privacy to the maximum extent possible. The enhanced identity authentication requirements mainly involves applicants having to attend at a designated office in order to provide appropriate documentary evidence and have their photograph and a sample of their signature recorded electronically. Since the project commenced, 973,500 persons have been registered for a PSC to date, 260,000 of which are the Free Travel variant.

The PSC also provides a higher and enhanced level of assurance as to identity. It acts as a key tool in the prevention and detection of identity fraud. Identity fraud and identity theft are issues which public bodies are rightly concerned about, both in terms of prevention and detection. It represents a robust identity registration process involving the capture of an individual’s photograph and signature and the verification of identity data already held by the Department. Provision has not been made for any further biometrics and currently there are no plans to change that.

It is anticipated that the secondment of 20 Gardaí to the Department to assist its Special Investigation Unit with fraud investigation work will come into effect in November 2014.

Seconded Gardaí will undertake the full range of investigative duties in detecting and combating social welfare fraud. They will retain their powers as Gardaí for the duration of their secondment. They will also have powers under the Social Welfare Acts to enable them to work with officers from the Department’s SIU and will perform all relevant social welfare fraud investigation functions. Protocols have been agreed between the Department and An Garda Síochána on the usage and protection of data. In addition, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has been consulted on these protocols and the arrangements that will apply.