Dept of Social Protection unaware of number of allegations that lead to detection of offense

The Department of Social Protection has admitted it does not know how many allegations of welfare fraud submitted by members of the public actually lead to the detection of an offense, writes Joe Leogue.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar launched a publicity campaign promoting his department’s online and telephone fraud-reporting services, but the department said it does not track whether reports by the public were of merit and helped detect a fraud.