Burton backs fraud control measures

Joan Burton, the social protection minister, has defended fraud control measures after claims that most of the savings actually came from correcting mistakes by her department.

Ms Burton said over €645m had been saved as a result of fraud control measures implemented in 2011, and that her department was hoping to match last year’s figures in 2012.

However, the savings are based on projections of money that would have been paid out in benefits if action had not been taken.

Of the €645m figure, Ms Burton admitted: “This is not cash in the bank.”

It then emerged that the figure for overpayments recovered by the department last year has not yet been finalised, while Social Justice Ireland claimed just 21.1% of overpayments in the social welfare system were due to fraud.

However, Anne Vaughan, the deputy secretary of the department, yesterday said just 6% of overpayments were due to departmental error, while half of all overpayments made were attributed to customer or third party error, and 30% to fraud.

Philip Cox, the principal officer in the department and head of the Special Investigations Unit, said one-third of all cases brought to the attention of the unit were found to have evidence of fraud.

Ms Vaughan said the strike rate for the near-17,000 tip-offs was likely to lower. She said the percentage of overpayments recovered last year increased to 55%, compared with 41% in 2010. The department has a budget of €20bn and makes 1.4 million payments every week. It received two million applications last year.

Ms Burton said the fraud control measures were being taken to safeguard the integrity of the system.

“The vast majority of people who claim supports from this department are absolutely honest,” Ms Burton said, adding that there was a “small proportion” of people who were scamming the system, including some with “criminal intent”. She said plans were also being put in place by the Government to enable Department of Social Protection officials to investigate suspected fraud and bring their findings to the DPP for a decision on possible prosecutions.

Fr Sean Healy of Social Justice Ireland said there was “no justification” for stating that fraud control was delivering massive savings.

Fraud review

* €645m saved in fraud control measures — same target set for this year.

* 982,580 reviews carried out.

* 392,624 child benefit reviews carried out — scaled back this year.

* 222,272 jobseeker reviews carried out.

* 849 cases of multiple claiming/identity fraud probed last year, 274 claims terminated.