Welfare crackdown saves €238m

A CRACKDOWN on social welfare fraud saved the Government €238m since the start of the year, according to figures released by the Department of Social Affairs yesterday.

Department inspectors conducted more than 200,000 reviews of welfare payments in the first six months of the year in a bid to eliminate bogus claims.

The reviews resulted in almost €81m of one-parent family payments being stopped, €54m in unemployment benefits being stopped, and €37m in illness payments being stopped.

Another €13m in child benefit and €10m in State pension payments were terminated.

In all, the Government saved €238m through the crackdown, a figure which Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin said she hoped would rise to €525m by the end of the year.

It’s understood the original target was €500m, but when the Government announced spending cutbacks last month because of the economic slowdown, Ms Hanafin said she would save a further €25m in her department through fraud prevention.

Yesterday, Ms Hanafin said the focus of the social welfare system was to “to ensure that the right money goes to the right person for the time that they need our support”.

But she added: “We have to ensure that if there are overpayments that this money is recouped, and if there is a deliberate attempt to defraud, that those people will be dealt with through the courts.”

So far this year, 205 cases have been forwarded to the Chief State Solicitors’ Office to allow prosecutions be taken.

Of these, according to the department, 134 cases have been finalised in court to date, with one person being imprisoned, three receiving suspended sentences, 81 being fined, two receiving community service and 19 receiving the Probation Act. The remaining penalties included cases where those convicted were bound to the peace.

The person who was imprisoned received a three-month sentence for working and claiming jobseekers’ allowance at the same time.

Almost one in every three euro spent by the State goes on social welfare, and the Department has a budget this year of approximately €17bn.

Ms Hanafin said payments were being made to about one million people a week, and acknowledged that a person’s individual circumstances could change.

However, she warned that people “should make sure they don’t leave themselves open to proceedings being taken against them by knowingly continuing to get a benefit that they are no longer entitled to”.