Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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54. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reform that has taken place of social welfare since 2011; the targets set in tackling social welfare fraud in 2014 and 2015; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6513/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The vast majority of people on social welfare are claiming the correct entitlement due to them. However, a small minority is not and a range of measures are employed by the Department to ensure that social welfare fraud and abuse is minimised and that its control activity is appropriately focused.

Since 2011 there has been a number of significant measures undertaken which have enhanced the prevention and detection of social welfare fraud. These measures commenced as part of the Fraud Initiative (2011 – 2013) and are being further progressed under the Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy 2014 – 2018, which I launched in April 2014. The Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy builds on the approaches that have been successfully rolled out over the past couple of years. These include the continued roll-out of the Public Services Card, enhanced data sharing with other Government Departments and Agencies and a number of significant legislative measures.

The emphasis continues to be on preventing fraud and error from entering the system in the first place. However, where fraud is discovered it is important that there are appropriate sanctions in place. In this regard, the Department is proactively targeting persons with overpayments to ensure all persons who have a social welfare overpayment are making a contribution towards the repayment of the debt outstanding. A number of legislative provisions have been introduced to strengthen the Department’s capacity to recover debt and, in addition, a new debt management system went live in November 2014. It is also the Department's policy to consider for prosecution cases of fraud against the social welfare system.

The Department recognises that fraud investigation and control can be assisted through the application of a range of new technologies. In this context, the Department has recently commenced a project utilising analytics technology to predict which claims are more likely to be fraudulent. When this technology is in place, it will enable the Department to target higher risk cases for investigation and to do so faster.

A number of other measures should also be noted. From the beginning of Dec 2014, 20 Gardaí have been seconded to the Department’s Special Investigation Unit. These officers will ensure a greater presence on the ground and will increase the investigative capacity of the Department to prevent, detect and deter social welfare fraud.

The Department’s control work is measured in terms of control savings. Control savings are used as a performance indicator for year-on-year activities and are an estimate of the value of the various control activities across the schemes in payment. They refer to future expenditure that would have been incurred but for this control work. Without this control work the social welfare expenditure would increase by this amount over time. The control savings target for 2014 was €510 million and it will be maintained at this level for 2015.

Fraud detection and control systems have been refined and enhanced in recent years and are subject to continuing review. Overall, this is resulting in less opportunity to commit fraud and less chance of claims being in payment at an incorrect rate through fraud or error.