Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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39. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the details of research carried out by his Department into the savings expected to be made as a result of the current welfare fraud campaign; if, in view of the fact that only 21% of identified overpayments made by his Department in 2015 were actually fraudulent as opposed to claims and payments made in error and that in the past four years overpayments due to error on the part of claimants and departmental staff have cost more than fraud, his views on whether his campaign should focus more on reducing errors on the part of both the claimant and departmental staff; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25937/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I would like thank the Deputy for raising this important issue.

Total overpayments raised by my Department in 2016 amounted to €110 million. Of this, customer fraud amounted to €41 million. Cases of this nature arise where a customer intentionally provides incomplete or inaccurate information in order to receive benefits or deliberately fails to inform the Department of relevant changes in their circumstances.

While the €41m is €5 million lower than the previous year and this is welcome, overall, I consider it to be unacceptable. I believe that any amount of fraud in the social welfare system is wrong and we must do everything we can to prevent it.

While overpayments as a result of claimants making mistakes amounted to the higher figure of €46 million last year, the Deputy will appreciate that some level of customer error can be expected in a system that processes 82 million payments every year and pays out €19.2 billion across 70 schemes. In addition, it should be noted that some €20m was overpaid in what are known as estate cases which relate to pensioners who were receiving a State Pension Non-Contributory where, after their death, some level of overpayment of entitlement was judged to have arisen. Overpayments from staff and administrative errors were recorded at €2.3m in 2016.

My Department is constantly improving systems and processes to minimise the risk of fraud and error and to allow claimants bring new and relevant information to our attention in a timely manner.

The recent fraud campaign will cost in the region of €206,000 when all costs are paid. Already, some 1,300 additional reports of fraud have been received over and above the same period last year. My officials have now started to examine these reports and they will be referred to the appropriate scheme area for follow-up action, where this is found to be warranted, in light of the information provided.

I agree with the Deputy that we should maintain the focus on reducing errors, but not to the exclusion of those who deliberately set out to defraud the social welfare system.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.