SOCIAL WELFARE fraud control measures have resulted in €228 million in savings this year, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said yesterday.
She said there had been a huge increase in cases of suspected welfare fraud being reported by the public - up to 2,581 in the first half of this year, compared to 362 for the same period last year.
An investigation of 114,000 child benefit claims resulted in €38 million in savings, while almost €30 million was saved when 87,664 jobseeker's allowance claims were reviewed.
A further €45.686 million was saved from pension claims, €4.04 million was saved when 1,460 carer claims were reviewed, and €2.8 million was saved through an examination of 798 Paye/PRSI claims. Ms Hanafin said "800 employers also underwent PRSI inspections and 77 per cent were found to be fully complying with their responsibilities".
Up to the end of June, 190 prosecutions had been completed, of which 126 resulted in fines and four in prison sentences for the accused, while a further 851 cases are at various stages of the prosecution process, Ms Hanafin said.
She added that the rise in "fraud prevention" was also due to increased co-operation and cross-referencing of data between departments. In particular, data sharing between the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Justice and the General Register's Office have greatly aided the battle against fraud, by helping provide employment data and data on births, marriages and deaths.
Fine Gael social and family affairs spokeswoman Olwyn Enright claimed the Minister "is needlessly patting herself on the back for her fraud control measures, despite the fact that she is over €70 million off her half-year target, making it highly unlikely that the department will reach the target savings of €600 million in 2009".
Ms Enright said the Minister "needs to outline what extra steps she intends to take to ensure that the €372 million savings that need to be made in the next six months will be achieved. The fact that actual resources available to her department for fraud control activity have been reduced makes this seem even more unlikely."
A total of 328,000 welfare claims were reviewed by 620 department staff.
The Minister said that "staff currently engaged in the means testing of new claims, for payments such as jobseeker's allowance, are ensuring that current scarce resources are being provided for those who most need it".
"A critical element of putting all claims into payment is ensuring that the right payment is going to the right person only for the period they are entitled to it."
Ms Hanafin said "a massive number of claims are being reviewed by staff across the department", and that as a result, 16 new social welfare inspectors had been appointed, bringing the total number up to almost 400.
"These additional resources will help continue to tackle abuse of our system, which needs to respond to the challenge of ever increasing demands."