The State still treats social welfare fraud far more seriously than tax fraud, the Labour Party has claimed.
The party's deputy leader, Ms Liz McManus, said yesterday the State had pursued over 200 cases of welfare fraud in the courts last year, but had secured just seven convictions for serious tax evasion.
Ms McManus highlighted the fact that the 2003 Annual Report of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, published on Monday, showed 210 cases of social welfare fraud were concluded in the courts last year.
Of these, 11 people were jailed, 27 given the probation act and 17 given a suspended sentence. Fines were imposed on 109 individuals.
The annual report said that as a result of "a new focused approach to the criminal prosecution of alleged offenders", a total of 355 cases were forwarded to the chief State solicitor's office for action. This was an increase of 73 per cent over the previous year.
Gross savings from efforts to control identity fraud, debt default and other abuses were €295.9 million last year, an increase of 8 per cent on 2002, the Department said.
Ms McManus said yesterday: "In contrast, the report of the Revenue Commissioners, published last month, reported that there were just seven convictions for serious tax evasion during 2003.
"Fines were imposed in six of the cases, and in the other a two-year suspended jail sentence was imposed. Nobody went to jail."
She said that neither social welfare fraud nor tax fraud should ever be acceptable.
"But it is remarkable that significant numbers of people are going to jail for welfare offences while the overwhelming majority of tax criminals seem to be able to buy their way out of prosecutions and jail sentences because they can afford to pay the financial penalties imposed by the Revenue Commissioners."
Ms McManus said tax evasion was not a victimless crime as every euro evaded in tax put an extra euro on the bill of compliant taxpayers.
"In addition, every euro evaded is a euro less for essential services such as health and education."
She said it was now known that tax evasion in this country was a major industry which involved, among others, professional advisers, accountants, banks and financial institutions.
"The Ansbacher Report, published in July 2002, revealed a detailed web of criminality, yet two years on there has not been a single prosecution."
Ms McManus said there would be further public disappointment if last week's report into the affairs of National Irish Bank also failed to result in criminal prosecutions. "The Revenue Commissioners have done an exceptional job in their pursuit, in particular, of offshore account holders which has swelled the State coffers by more than €1.5 billion.
"However, tax crime will only be wiped out when those involved are convinced that there is a real risk of going to jail if detected."
Publishing the report on Monday, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, said that some 970,000 weekly social welfare payments are made, benefiting 1.5 million people.