700% increase in suspected welfare fraud reports

THERE has been a sevenfold increase in the number of suspected welfare fraudsters reported by the public in the past year but most reports did not yield any savings for the State, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs was told that 2,136 reports were received by the Department of Social and Family Affairs control division at the end of last month, compared to just 299 over the same period in 2008, an increase of 714%.

The department’s director general of social welfare services, Niamh O’Donoghue, who appeared before the committee, stressed that a significant majority of the reports, when investigated, did not lead to any savings.

In many instances, the individuals reported were correctly benefiting from exemptions and disregards under the appropriate schemes.

The department processes over two millions claims every year and the budget for social welfare is €21.3bn in the current year.

The committee was told that it was moving towards the introduction of photo-based public service cards.

The records of about 3,200 employers were inspected last year to ensure compliance with the department’s regulations and, in particular, to prevent and detect abuses of the system.

Almost €476m in social welfare payments was saved through fraud control measures last year, an increase of €29m. This year’s target is over €600m.

Last year, 324 criminal cases were finalised in court, up 86 on the previous year. A total of 354 criminal cases were referred to the Chief State Solicitor’s office for the initiation of criminal proceedings.

Ms O’Donoghue said that a series of fraud and error surveys had established the overall level of fraud across the department’s main schemes was very low.

“From the evidence that we have assembled from those surveys, it is less than 1% of expenditure,” Ms O’Donoghue said.

She pointed out that a fraud and error survey of the One-Parent payment showed a fraud level of about 6.5% and was probably one of the highest levels across the schemes, but that efforts were being made to tackle this.

Ms O’Donoghue said about €54m was identified as over-payments last year and about €26.9m was recovered.

Significant savings were made in a new move to stop bogus child benefit claims by non-residents, with one in four such claims terminated last year.