Government saves €22m in child benefit crackdown

THE Government has cracked down on more than 2,200 claimants wrongly receiving child benefit in the past six years, saving an estimated €22 million in the process.

In all these cases, the Department of Social and Family Affairs launched investigations after information letters sent to each claimant’s address were returned undelivered.

The department routinely issues mailshots to claimants to inform them of their entitlements or of changes in social welfare schemes.

The return of an undelivered letter usually prompts an investigation into the claimant’s current address. If the claimant’s whereabouts cannot be established, their benefits may be terminated.

A string of such investigations since 2001 has resulted in 2,273 child benefit claims being terminated.

“A figure of €22m in savings has been attributed to this control activity,” the department said.

However, the department was unable to say how long these claimants had been receiving child benefit in error and how much the State paid out prior to termination.

“There are no specific figures for the amounts of child benefit that may have been paid in error before the department was aware of the fact that the beneficiary was no longer entitled to the payment,” it said.

But it pointed to investigations prompted by its most recent mailshot as an example where further savings to the Exchequer would be made.

In April last, the department issued an information leaflet on behalf of the Office of the Minister for Children to 259,000 child benefit recipients who will qualify for the early childcare supplement. The €1,000 annual supplement, to assist with childcare costs, was announced in December’s Budget.

The leaflet provided information to recipients on payment arrangements.

“To date, 4,500 letters have been returned and investigations are ongoing to establish the present position of these customers,” the department said.

“It is estimated that up to 350 terminations, resulting in estimated savings of €3.5m will result from the approximately 4,500 letters returned undelivered.”

The savings are estimated on an average of €10,000 per claimant which the department would have paid out in child benefit over the years if it remained unaware that the money was being paid in error.

Payments are typically terminated in cases where families have moved abroad and thus no longer qualify.

Because the majority of child benefit payments are made directly to the recipient’s bank account, this would not have come to light until mailshot letters were returned undelivered.