Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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555. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost of his anti-fraud publicity campaign. [19770/17]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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556. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the savings targets for his anti-fraud campaign. [19772/17]

Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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570. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the funding allocated to the publicity campaign to tackle welfare fraud launched on 18 April 2017; the timeline of this particular campaign; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19993/17]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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600. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost to his Department of the recently launched welfare fraud campaign, including all costs for public advertising related to the campaign. [20472/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 555, 556, 570 and 600 together.

The Department administers over 70 separate schemes and services, which affect the lives of almost every person in the State. In 2016, some 1.7 million applications for benefit, assistance and access to schemes were received and processed and over 82 million individual payments were made to people across all age groups and to employers. The scale of its operations and expenditure demand that a robust and integrated range of control and anti-fraud measures are in place. Measures to prevent and detect fraud and enhance controls across the Department’s various schemes are set out in the Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy which covers the period 2014 – 2018.

In 2016, the Department achieved overall savings of €506m as a result of control and anti-fraud measures. This reflects nearly 950,000 reviews of individual claims undertaken by the Department last year to determine on-going entitlements.

The “Welfare cheats cheat us all” publicity campaign is designed to:

- Promote discussion on the topic of social welfare fraud and challenge the perceptions of those who see it as a victimless crime;

- Encourage reporting of suspected/known social welfare fraud. The “direct marketing” element of the campaign appeals to the public to report fraud and makes is easier for them to do so. It also affords an opportunity to increase awareness of the Department’s fraud reporting contact numbers and online reporting options;

- Demonstrate that the Government and Department takes the issue of social welfare fraud very seriously and that it will investigate and prosecute, where this is found to be warranted; and

- Demonstrate that the Department is very conscious of its obligations, as one of the largest spending Departments in the State, and the importance of protecting the integrity of the social welfare system.

The delivery of the campaign will achieve a balance of coverage across all demographics and regions and incorporate print, national and regional radio stations, digital and outdoor advertising. The national and regional radio, print and outdoor advertising will run for a period of two weeks, with a longer timeframe of 4 to 6 weeks for digital/online advertising. The cost of the advertising campaign is €165,988 excluding VAT. It includes all design and advertising costs associated with the campaign (print advertising, national and regional radio advertising, outdoor and online/digital advertising). No additional costs arise in staff resources, website development or the provision of the telephone reporting facility.

The Department has set no specific savings targets for this campaign. An overall savings target of €510 million has been set for 2017 and additional reporting from members of the public will support the Department in achieving this target. Some 500 reports were received in the first week after I launched the campaign on 18^thApril. This represents more than double the number of reports received in the same week in 2016 and a 70% increase in the number received in the first week of April this year.