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.