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.