Welfare fraud tip-offs double over last year

THERE were over 2,700 anonymous tip-offs to a Government department over suspected welfare fraud in the first three months of this year, more than double the figure for the same period last year.

Just one-in-five of the tip-offs yielded results.

The figures were revealed yesterday by Social Protection Minister Éamon O Cuív who also admitted he was looking at new measures which would see welfare payments cut or removed from people able to work or attend training courses but who refuse to do so.

The minister told the Select Committee on Social and Family Affairs that to the end of March this year his department had received 2,729 anonymous reports from members of the public on the issue of suspected welfare fraud.

That represents a 148% increase on the 1,099 calls in the same period last year.

Overall, the department’s Carrick-on-Shannon base dealt with more than 6,400 reports last year.

Each report is followed up, the minister said, before he revealed that just 20% are legitimate tip-offs.

The department is targeting control and fraud savings this year of €533m, while 347 criminal cases involving social welfare recipients were finalised last year.

While he stressed the level of fraud in most schemes was very low – with a department fraud and error survey indicating 0% for pensioners and 2.3% for Disability Allowance – the minister indicated he was prepared to look at ways of encouraging people to work without allowing the system to become “too penal”.

“I hope that when I take the action against people who are not going on schemes and will not receive full payment the Labour Party will support me,” the minister said in an exchange with Labour Deputy Roisin Shortall.

“If somebody who is totally able-bodied was offered a place on a scheme and does not take it one has to ask why are they not taking it,” he said later.

Some members of the committee said the minister’s department did not have sufficient baseline data; that no distinction was made between fraud and error and just 31% of landlords receiving rent supplement were giving their PPS numbers to the department.

Mr O Cuív also said he will be holding the first in a series of public meetings in Tallaght, where he will be speaking with people affected by the downturn in the economy.

Many of them are families who have changed from being a two-income household to one income or income-free household.