Over €130 million in incorrect social welfare payments still unrecovered

OVER €130 million that was incorrectly paid out to social welfare recipients had still to be recovered at the beginning of this year.

Last year alone the Department of Social and Family Affairs detected €47m worth of payments that were transferred to ineligible claimants on top of the €115m that was carried over from previous years.

Of total figure that was outstanding at the beginning of 2006 €35m dates back to 2002 or before and does not include the €30m that has been written off as unrecoverable.

In 2005 more than €11m was repaid to the department in cash and a further €8m was stopped from people’s welfare entitlements.

Yesterday, the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General showed that for the first time in five years the level of overpayments has fallen.

However, the cumulative amount on the department’s recovery books continues to snowball despite new projects targeted at welfare fraudsters.

The department pointed to the success of its Special Investigations Unit in both unemployment and one-parent family cases as playing a significant role in last year’s recovery efforts.

In 2005 the department declared that there were 15,000 cases of welfare fraud, as distinct from innocent cases of overpayment, and these cost the State €18m.

Yesterday it said that the majority of overpayments (19,900) were made to people who had returned to work and were claiming simultaneously.

It referred 412 cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions which resulted in four people going to prison, 24 receiving a suspended sentence from a total of 256 cases that reached the courts.