Two in every five euro wrongly paid to welfare clients in 2012 attributed to fraud
The Comptroller and Auditor General also found the amount of ineligible claims linked to fraud had more than doubled during the same period.
Currently, the Department of Social Protection believes that two in every five euro that was wrongly paid to clients last year happened because of fraud.
The C&AG said putting greater pressure on known cheats would dissuade others from targeting the welfare system.
“The high proportion of fraud cases underlines the importance of ensuring that there is effective recovery of debts arising from overpayments.
“Increasing the extent to which overpayments are recovered is likely to act as a disincentive to fraudulent behaviour by claimants,” the C&AG’s annual report said.
Last year, the department calculated that there were more than 20,720 fraud cases and in 1,000 instances the culprit pocketed in excess of €6,000. However, just 274 cases were considered for prosecution.
Due to a combination of fraud and error, the department is now chasing €375m in debt, a 62% increase since 2007.
These overpayments arose from welfare claims from people who defrauded the State, made a mistake in their claims or benefited because of errors processing their files.
Despite doubling the amount of money it has successfully recouped from people since 2007, the department has seen the sum owed to it grow each year. In 2012, it only recovered 13% of the debt that was outstanding.
A review carried out by the C&AG found that out of a sample of 184 cases, just 25% of overpayments were fully recovered and 11% were written off altogether.
A third of people involved had set up a repayment plan with the department that was ongoing. The department told the C&AG it was continually working to recover both new and old debt, but that the nature of welfare recovery made it difficult to reflect the true performance of its staff.
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