Welfare fraud crackdown nets €483m

A CRACKDOWN on fraudulent social welfare claims yielded almost half a billion euro in savings to the state last year, it has emerged.

The Department of Social Protection’s annual report shows it carried out 929,000 “control reviews” of schemes it was operating and these generated about €483 million in payments that should not have been made.

Of that total, €107.6m came from child benefit claims, €94.6m from illness schemes, €83.3m from state pension schemes and €71.5m from one-parent family payments.