System’s inefficiency highlighted as €45m paid out mistakenly

WELFARE officials sanctioned more than €45 million in payments last year to claimants who didn’t qualify for them.

Almost 40,000 welfare recipients were overpaid an average of €1,137 each, with more than half of the overpayments due to mistakes rather than deliberate welfare fraud.

A little more than €12m was recovered in cash while a further €10.5m is being recovered by making deductions from recipients’ current entitlements, but that still leaves outstanding overpayments accumulated over recent years amounting to €149.5m.