Welfare overpayments increase 8% to €116m
Welfare overpayments rose by 8% last year to €116m, with 7,000 suspected cases of fraud accounting for €31.3m.
There were also 14,600 anonymous tip-offs by people last year involving suspected fraud or wrongdoing. The provisional end-of-year data from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection also show that there were 23 cases of suspected identity fraud detected by facial matching technology.
The figures show that the estimated value of welfare fraud rose by 6% last year even though the number of suspected cases fell 10%.
The department considered more than 500 cases for prosecution. Some 98 cases were finalised by the courts with 86 cases referred to the gardaí for prosecution under the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.
Referring to the estimated 7,000 cases of suspected welfare fraud last year, a departmental spokesperson said: “Of these cases, roughly 4,350 valued at €11.9m involved Jobseeker’s Benefit and assistance claims. That compared to the corresponding figures for 2018; 5,600 cases and €14.4m.
The control process is an integral part of the day-to-day operations of the department and all staff members involved in the administration of the various social welfare schemes have obligations to protect the integrity of the social welfare system.
As for the tip-offs, 12,109 (83%) were received online via the department’s website; 1,291 (9%) by phone, and the rest by post.
“The highest proportion of reports related to people who were said to be claiming a payment and working at the same time,” said the spokesperson.
The department also said that there were 23 cases of suspected identity fraud detected by facial matching technology. A review of applications for Disability Allowance found that, of the 24,017 received, more than half (13,981 applications) were disallowed. Another 1,519 were withdrawn by the applicants and there were 236 disability allowance payments terminated following a medical review.
The department said it secured savings of €4.98m as a result of its Liable Relative Unit in recovering or securing child maintenance payments.
“This comprised savings in cases where the one-parent family payment was reduced as a result of an increase in maintenance, where the one-parent family payment was either stopped or disallowed and in direct payments to the department,” it said.
It also highlighted new initiatives in the department’s Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy 2019-2023, including employer inspections incorporating a “new unit of social welfare inspectors which will focus solely on false self employment”.
