Moves made to clamp down on social security cheats

Tough new measures to punish social security cheats in the North who bleed the system of millions of pounds a year moved a step closer today.

The Social Security Fraud Bill which includes powers to investigate bank and building society accounts and remove benefits from persistent offenders passed its Second Stage in the Stormont Assembly.

Social Development Minister Maurice Morrow (DUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone) said that much of the fraud was carefully planned and carried out by sophisticated criminals.

‘‘In Northern Ireland about £73m per annum of public money is lost due to benefit fraud. By anybody’s standards that is a very large amount of money,’’ he said.

‘‘Fraud is not what is often portrayed as a small time activity, a victimless crime.

"Rather it is more often a planned and calculated act and it diverts a great deal of money away from other objectives."

His department has set a target of reducing losses by 5% a year from April 2001 to March 2004 by rooting out hardcore fraudsters.

‘‘These people must be made to realise that they cannot abuse the system and steal from the rest of society with impunity,’’ added the minister.

‘‘This Bill provides that those convicted of benefit fraud will be warned that a further conviction within the space of three years would mean that they could lose benefits for 13 weeks,’’ he said.

Mr Morrow added the vast majority of people who claimed benefit were honest.