Perspective please

The annual report from the Comptroller and Auditor General is usually an occasion for indignation and how-dare-they high dudgeon.

The figures involved are often spectacular and provoke charges of carelessness and a lack of responsibility that are often as colourful as they are inaccurate and misplaced.

This year is no different. The most eye-catching figure is the €100m bill for fraud and error around the jobseekers allowance — or €2.68m per week. Each week in the period under review, around 300,000 people collected this payment. A total of 1,000 jobseekers cases were investigated and 85% were deemed satisfactory. Customer error was found in 119 cases, departmental error in nine cases and fraud in just 21 cases — or just over 2%.