John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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254. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the training persons working on the anti-fraud campaign have received; the number of persons working on this campaign including those on the telephone service and the online service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22829/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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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.

The current 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. 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.

In all, some 12 staff, including management staff, dealt with increase in reports and support the press office and communications unit during the campaign. All staff members were in place in advance of the campaign and had extensive experience in handling telephone, webservice and written communication under the Department’s good citizen reporting service. The campaign was managed by the Department’s communications unit.

At 14 May, a total of 2,517 reports had been received. The number of reports received in the same period in 2016 was 1,559. Work has commenced on the examination of the reports and where credible information has been received, the reports will be referred to the relevant scheme areas for further examination and possible investigation.