COMMITTEE of PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 26 Oct 2000

Vol. 2 No. 27

1999 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.

Vote 40 - Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.

Mr. J. Purcell(An tÁrd Reactaire Cuntas agus Ciste) and Mr. E. Sullivan (Secretary General, Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs) called and examined.

Acting Chairman (Mr. J. Dennehy)

Today we are dealing with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, 1999 and Appropriation Accounts, Vote 40, Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. Relevant documentation has already been circulated. There is correspondence dated 5 May 2000 from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs regarding the requested project on long-term unemployment in Galway. That was requested at the meeting on 17 February when the issues of the divergence between the national quarterly household survey and the live register of the unemployed were discussed, and it was previously circulated with the correspondence list at the meeting on 11 June. Correspondence dated 23 October 2000 from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs survey of unemployed customers and employment opportunities in Galway late June 2000 was also requested on the same issue and was circulated.

It was also proposed at a meeting of 17 February 2000 that a similar survey to that conducted in Galway should be conducted in another area of the Department's choosing. No information has yet been received on this issue, but we could ask about that later.

I would like to make witnesses aware that, unfortunately, they do not enjoy absolute privilege and to draw their attention to the fact that as and from 2 August 1998, section 10 of the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act, 1997, grants certain rights to persons who are identified in the course of the committee's proceedings. The rights have been issued to you previously. Notwithstanding this provision in the legislation, I should remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I ask Mr. Eddie Sullivan, Secretary General of the Department, to introduce his officials.

Mr. Sullivan

Thank you, Chairman. I am accompanied by Mr. John Hynes, Director General of the social welfare services; Mr. Paul Wilson; Ms Anne Tynan, accountant in the Department, and Mr. Barry Kennedy.

Acting Chairman

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. I will be asking the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce the accounts. Paragraph 10, the services contract, is included. It is relevant to this Department today. It is also relevant to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, the Office of Public Works and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. We will not be noting it today as its consideration shall resume with the accounts of each of these Departments. At the end I will go through that, and we will be excluding paragraph 10 from the noting of the Votes and the accounts. We are examining paragraphs 35, 36 and 37, and we will be taking 35 and 36 initially together. We will return to paragraph 37 and to the Votes. I ask Mr. Purcell, the Comptroller and Auditor General, to introduce the accounts.

Paragraphs 35 and 36 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General read:

35. Overpayments

The Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs administers some 50 welfare schemes paid through Vote 40 and the Social Insurance Fund. Expenditure on assistance and insurance schemes was £2.61bn and £2.11bn respectively in 1999.

The following tables outline overall expenditure on various schemes over the period 1995 to 1999, and for the same period, the amounts recorded as overpayments, the amounts of overpayments attributed to fraud or suspected fraud and the Department's cumulative record of recovery since 1995.

Table 20 - Total Scheme Expenditure

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Social Insurance	1,868	1,794	1,842	1,983	2,112
Social Assistance	2,152	2,399	2,491	2,567	2,614
TOTAL	4,020	4,193	4,333	4,550	4,726

Table 21 - Number and Amount of overpayments recorded for recovery (Numbers shown in brackets)

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Social Insurance	4.13(12,914)	4.12(12,366)	4.48(12,925)	4.14(13,897)	6.03(18,080)
Social Assistance	12.31(17,769)	14.73(20,243)	16.30(21,759)	18.08(22,054)	16.38(21,346)
TOTAL	16.44(30,683)	18.85(32,609)	20.78(34,684)	22.22(35,951)	22.41(39,426)

Table 22 - Number and Amount of overpayments attributed to fraud or suspected fraud (Numbers shown in brackets)

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Social Insurance	1.96(3,505)	2.23(3,074)	2.01(3,271)	2.16(4,810)	2.53(5,821)
Social Assistance	9.66(7,315)	11.41(7,486)	12.50(7,914)	8.54*(9,383)	9.56(9,273)
TOTAL	11.62(10,820)	13.64(10,560)	14.51(11,185)	10.70(14,193)	12.09(15,094)

*This fall of almost £4m was principally due to a change in the way the Department classified overpayments arising from the finalisation of the estates of recipients of non-contributory social welfare scheme payments. Prior to 1998 such overpayments were deemed to be attributable to fraud or suspected fraud.

The amount of overpayments attributed tofraud or suspected fraud compared to totaloverpayments since 1995 is summarised inFigure 2.

Table 23 - Department's record of recovery of overpayments 1995 to 1999

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Overpayments not disposed of at 1 January	31,945	31,423	35,082	37,579	42,229
Overpayments recorded for recovery	16,438	18,853	20,781	22,221	22,405
less: overpayments recorded in prior years cancelled	(436)	(430)	(301)	(378)	(230)
sums recovered in cash	(3,895)	(4,399)	(4,638)	(5,335)	(4,059)
sums withheld from current entitlements	(2,712)	(3,311)	(4,274)	(3,880)	(3,307)
amounts written off as irrecoverable	(9,917)	(7,054)	(9,071)	(7,978)	(9,326)
Overpayments not disposed of at 31 December	31,423	35,082	37,579	42,229	47,712

36. Prosecutions

Cases involving abuse of the system are considered with a view to taking legal proceedings. Prosecutions are taken against employers who fail to carry out their statutory obligations and persons who defraud the social welfare payments system. Prosecutions can either be by summary or indictment proceedings. Civil proceedings are taken to facilitate the recovery of scheme overpayments or the collection of PRSI arrears. Such cases are only taken where it has been established that the debtor has sufficient means to discharge the debt.

During 1999, 329 criminal cases (1998-234 cases) and 9 civil cases (1998-9 cases) were forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor's Office for prosecution.

Table 24 - Criminal cases forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor

	1998	1999
Unemployment Assistance	117	171
Unemployment Benefit	34	77
Disability Benefit	10	27
Invalidity Pension	2	1
One Parent Family Payments	13	10
Other Schemes	1	3
Offences Committed by Employers	57	40
Total	234	329

A total of 107 prosecutions (1998-117 prosecutions) involving social welfare recipients were finalised in court in 1999. The total amount of overpayments assessed in cases of persons who attempted to or obtained benefit/assistance fraudulently was £426,078 (1998-£411,510). The results of these 107 court cases and the penalties imposed are given in Table 25.

Table 25 - Results of Court Cases involving Social Welfare Recipients

	Fines Imposed	Community Service	Imprisonment	Probation Act	Proven No Penalty
Unemployment Assistance	24	5	9	19	10
Unemployment Benefit	7	3	6	4	2
Disability Benefit	6	1	-	2	1
Invalidity Pension	1	-	-	1	-
One Parent Family Payments	3	-	-	1	1
Other Schemes	-	-	-	1	-
Total	41*	9	15†	28	14

*Fines to a value of £9,728 were imposed by the courts (£14,095 in 1998 in 59 cases).

†9 subsequently suspended.

The prosecution of 37 cases involving employers (1998-43 employers) were also finalised. The results of these court cases and the penalties imposed are given in Table 26.

Table 26 - Results of Court Cases involving Employers

	1999
Cases Fined	31*
Prison Sentence	-
Probation Act	1
Proven/No Penalty	5
Total	37

*Fines to the value of £10,006 were imposed by the courts (1998: £13,050 in 37 cases).

There were no civil cases finalised in 1999 (1998 - zero cases)

The number of prosecutions finalised in the courts since 1995 is summarised in Figure 3.

Mr. Purcell

As the Chairman said, we are taking paragraphs 35 and 36 together. Paragraph 35 is a standard paragraph. It sets out in summarised form the number and value of social welfare overpayments in 1999 together with comparative figures for earlier years. In 1999 there were overpayments totalling £22.4 million, of which £12 million was attributed by the Department to fraud or suspected fraud. The committee will note that outstanding cumulative overpayments at the end of 1999 totalled almost £48 million, and that is after writing off £43 million or so as irrecoverable in the past five years. In the same period, recoveries by the Department averaged about £8 million per annum. Around £40 million in all was recovered in that five-year period. In general, on the basis of those figures over a five-year period, it can be said that the Department writes off marginally more than it recovers.

Paragraph 36 records the number of prosecutions taken by the Department against social welfare recipients and employers who have perpetrated fraud against the system. Dealing with social welfare recipients first, one will see that 289 criminal cases were forwarded by the Department to the Chief State Solicitor's office for prosecution in 1999. This was a big increase on the 177 cases sent in the previous year. A total of 107 prosecutions involving recipients were finalised in the year with the results are set out in table 25.

In regard to employers, 40 criminal cases were forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor's office in 1999. That is down from 57 in the previous year. Thirty-seven cases in all involving employers were finalised in the year and the results are set out in table 26.

Regarding the civil side of prosecutions, although 18 cases were forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor's office in the two years 1998 and 1999, no civil cases were finalised in the same period. There are a lot of figures there, but to bring the committee up to date, the fact that 484 criminal cases and 31 civil cases for social welfare offences have not had a court hearing at the end of September of this year raises the question in my mind as to whether there are problems in handling the volume of cases forwarded by the Department and what remedial action is being taken if that is the case.

Acting Chairman

I should also mention that we have present with us Mr. Joe Mooney, Principal Officer, Public Expenditure Division of the Department of Finance and Mr. Gerry Kennedy, Assistant Principal of Vote Control. Perhaps Mr. Sullivan would like to make an opening statement.

Mr. Sullivan

I do not have much to add to what the Comptroller and Auditor General said. He set out the factual position in relation to overpayments, numbers and the amount of money involved, and the number of prosecutions. In relation to the last point, I am not aware of any specific difficulties in the Chief State Solicitor's office in dealing with the cases we sent to them. As I understand the procedure, these cases could be mentioned in court and then adjourned if moneys are paid back. It might seem, therefore, as if they are still with the Chief State Solicitor's office and have not yet been finalised. I am not aware that there is a particular problem in that area.

Acting Chairman

Thank you. Our leading questioners today will be Deputy Conor Lenihan followed by Deputy Padraic McCormack. I call Deputy Lenihan.

Deputy C. Lenihan

If I can deal first with the prosecution issue because that was something I raised on the last occasion. We often like to see the white collar criminals go down as well but fraud against the State, like social welfare fraud, should be prosecuted. I am not clear from these figures on the number of people who were successfully prosecuted for social welfare fraud in 1999. I may be reading the figures wrongly.

Mr. Sullivan

As a result of court cases involving social welfare——

Deputy C. Lenihan

How many people were actually prosecuted with a jail sentence?

Mr. Sullivan

With a jail sentence?

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, or an appropriate fine. It does not seem to be——

Mr. Sullivan

Table 25 in the Comptroller's report shows a total of 107 court cases involving social welfare recipients, 15 of whom were imprisoned, and there is a footnote to say that nine were subsequently——

Deputy C. Lenihan

Fifteen were imprisoned?

Mr. Sullivan

Nine were subsequently suspended. So 107——

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is that nine under "community service"?

Mr. Sullivan

No. That is different. A total of 107 court cases were finalised in 1999.

Deputy C. Lenihan

In other words, 107 cases went to court?

Mr. Sullivan

No, were finalised, so there would be more before the courts, as I said earlier.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes. There were 329 cases during 1999 -

Mr. Sullivan

- that we sent to the Chief State Solicitor's office and as I explained earlier, some of those cases could well have been mentioned in court but they have not been finalised in court.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I just want to get the figures right. That is the reason I am going through this. I am not trying to catch out Mr. Sullivan or anything like that. To get the right picture, 329 were deemed to be appropriate for prosecution.

Mr. Sullivan

Right.

Deputy C. Lenihan

In 1999, for a variety of reasons, 107 were actually listed in court and had a hearing.

Mr. Sullivan

They were finalised.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What does Mr. Sullivan mean by "finalised"?

Mr. Sullivan

They are finished. Fines have been imposed and sentences have been handed down - imprisonment, the Probation Act or whatever. Clearly that 107 would not be of the 329 because there would be cases from previous years.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, there could be but in any one year, 1999 being a typical or an untypical year - I do not know - the breakdown is in table 25. Is that right?

Mr. Sullivan

Correct.

Deputy C. Lenihan

That is the breakdown of the 107?

Mr. Sullivan

Correct.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Fines were imposed in 41 cases, nine cases involved community service, the figure for imprisonment is 15 and for the Probation Act it is 28. Is that a bit lenient in Mr. Sullivan's view? If we were to take a punitive look at this, 15 out of the 107 actually went to jail. Can Mr. Sullivan give the reason only 15 out of 107 went to jail? The others involved community service or fines were imposed. Does that frustrate Mr. Sullivan or does he expect that?

Mr. Sullivan

It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the outcome of cases.

Deputy C. Lenihan

No, but has an analysis been done?

Mr. Sullivan

I think we are happy with the level of cases we are sending over. We have a target of about 400 cases this year and we are reasonably happy with the level of cases that we are sending over to them and the way they are being handled, but it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the actual sentences that have been handed down by the court.

Deputy C. Lenihan

These are bona fide cases where the people deliberately set out to steal money from the State. Is that not what we are essentially talking about?

Mr. Sullivan

That is right. These are fraud cases that we have come across as part of our overall control activities on expenditure. We identify a number of cases where we consider that it would be appropriate that the person be prosecuted, because of the size of the overpayment, the duration of it or the seriousness of what was going on, and we send them to the Chief State Solicitor's office.

Deputy C. Lenihan

It refers to fines to the value of £9,000. The biggest section here is to do with fines, and I have no problem with that; we do not want everyone to go to jail. Is £9,700 the maximum fine that was imposed by a court?

Mr. Sullivan

No. I think that is the total amount that was imposed. There are maximum limits laid down in the legislation.

Deputy C. Lenihan

In other words, of 41 people who were stealing from the State by defrauding social welfare, the amount of money the State raised out of fining was £9,000. Am I reading that correctly?

Mr. Sullivan

Yes. Of the 41 cases, most were in the £50 to £100 category.

Deputy C. Lenihan

In other words, the amounts of money being defrauded were of the £50 to £100——

Mr. Sullivan

Sorry, the fines.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The fines were £50 or £100?

Mr. Sullivan

The fines were £50 to £100.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Where a fine was imposed, that was the average?

Mr. Sullivan

The average on the basis of the figures in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report would be £200.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The average fine is £50 to £100 but what is the average offence where a fine is imposed? What kind of moneys were actually defrauded? Let us look at justice in a sense. Does the punishment meet the crime?

Mr. Sullivan

An overpayment may well have arisen in a particular case but we may not be able to prove the whole amount. Some of it might be just sample amounts.

Deputy C. Lenihan

There are 41 specific cases where fines were imposed by the courts so there must be some average on the amount being defrauded.

Mr. Sullivan

We do not have the details here of the actual charges in each of those cases.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Does Mr. Sullivan have any anecdotal evidence or analysis?

Mr. Sullivan

Other than to say that if there was a large overpayment, we may not necessarily be able to prove all of it. Some of it may be only sample cases that are being brought, for example, if there was a false declaration made in respect of certain weeks.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Presumably these are people who have been brought before the courts system. You would know exactly how much they had defrauded. Presumably there was an investigation.

Mr. Sullivan

Yes, but I do not have it here.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Chairman, perhaps we could have some sort of table indicating the average amounts being defrauded. Does Mr. Sullivan not have any particular anecdotal testimony on the average social welfare fraud?

Mr. Sullivan

I would prefer to give the Deputy the right figure. We will have a look at it.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I would like to see the averages across all categories, if possible - the fines that were imposed, community service, imprisonment, etc. Presumably imprisonment must be fairly serious, is that correct?

Mr. Sullivan

Yes.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Would it be fair to conclude that it would involve a large amount of money?

Mr. Sullivan

Presumably a large amount of money. I do not have the details, Deputy, in relation to those specific cases but I can certainly look at them.

Deputy C. Lenihan

It is probably not fair to ask Mr. Sullivan to react to that but if the average fine is of the order of £50 to £100, is that anywhere near the amount that has been defrauded?

Mr. Sullivan

The overpayment would be recovered as well.

Deputy C. Lenihan

That is an overpayment.

Mr. Sullivan

Sorry, arising from the fraud, that would be recovered as well.

Deputy C. Lenihan

So there is full recovery?

Mr. Sullivan

There is an attempt to make full recovery, and then there is a fine.

Deputy C. Lenihan

We have noted in previous years that there is a problem recovering money. What is the percentage in regard to recovering amounts?

Mr. Sullivan

Again, it is difficult to——

Deputy C. Lenihan

Come up with a figure?

Mr. Sullivan

We recover——

Deputy C. Lenihan

Of the moneys defrauded from the State, what percentage is recovered?

Mr. Sullivan

We are dealing with different years but if we take the various caveats that I mentioned, of the total overpayments recorded we recover about a third in a year but some of that could relate to previous years.

Deputy C. Lenihan

But in any one year, on average a third of the overpayments are recovered?

Mr. Sullivan

A third of what we record.

Deputy C. Lenihan

So two-thirds of what is captured in any given year is not recovered, in terms of fraud against the State?

Mr. Sullivan

They are total overpayments, not just the fraud cases.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, they are accidental overpayments plus fraud but there is only a ratio of two-thirds recovery.

Mr. Sullivan

That is a large amount not recovered.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What is the main reason for that? How much are we talking about if we are talking about only reclaiming a third of overpayments in one year?

Mr. Sullivan

If the Deputy is asking——

Deputy C. Lenihan

There must be a figure on overpayments generally.

Mr. Sullivan

The figure here?

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes.

Mr. Sullivan

We recorded £22 million in 1999.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, and only a third of that is actually recovered.

Mr. Sullivan

A total of £7.3 million.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I am sorry for putting Mr. Sullivan through this one.

Mr. Sullivan

As the Comptroller and Auditor General's report shows in table 23, we would then write-off a certain number every year as irrecoverable.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What is the annual write off of the number that are irrecoverable?

Mr. Sullivan

About 40% of the number recorded, but that figure relates to overpayments in previous years.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Mr. Sullivan is saying that figure cannot be captured in a year as it relates to overpayments in previous years, but of all overpayments, be they through fraud or accident——

Mr. Sullivan

Approximately 40% of them are written off. That occurs after a good deal of effort has been made to try to recover the money, but it has not been possible to do so because the person concerned may have gone away or died.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Does Mr. Sullivan believe that relatively high figure of 40% can be lowered?

Mr. Sullivan

We devote a good deal of attention to the control of expenditure. We are engaged in many activities to reduce the basic fraud figure, the one about which we would be most concerned. Such overpayments arise from errors made by the Department or the client or through fraud. Various procedures are in place to root out abuse in the system and we have internal procedures which we have tried to improve in different ways. We have developed a debt management policy in recent years and each area of the Department focuses on recovering overpayments and debt management as part of its day to day operations. That is something at which we chip away.

The has been an increase in the number of cases in 1999 over the number in 1998, although the amount of money involved is more or less the same. The amounts of overpayments are smaller. I would like to think that is partly due to our picking up on such figures sooner than we did in the past. That is something we monitor on a regular basis.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Am I correct in assuming that of all the cases forwarded for prosecution not one employer has yet been prosecuted, or does that apply only to the position in 1999? The report indicates 57 offences were committed by employers in 1998, 40 were committed in 1999, but——

Mr. Sullivan

Table 26 on page 96 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General sets out the result of court cases involving employers. There were 37 such cases in 1999.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Not one employer was sent to prison.

Mr. Sullivan

No.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The Probation Act was applied in one case. What does the category "proven - no penalty" cover?

Mr. Sullivan

It means a fine was not imposed and that the case was proven but a sentence was not handed down.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Not one employer has gone to prison for such an offence in 1999.

Mr. Sullivan

That is correct.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is that the norm?

Mr. Sullivan

That is normal.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is it normal that an employer would not be sent to prison for committing such an offence? That seems odd, given that one hears stories of——

Mr. Sullivan

I cannot recall a case of an employer going to prison——

Deputy C. Lenihan

——for social welfare fraud.

Mr. Sullivan

Yes.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Why is that? It seems odd that not one employer has gone to prison for committing such an offence given that employees who have committed such an offence have gone to prison.

Mr. Sullivan

If the Department decides to prosecute an employer who has not paid PRSI, maintained records or co-operated with the Department and the employer makes restitution, I imagine such an employer would not be sent to prison. A number of cases were brought a few years ago, but they were subsequently suspended, although as I do not have details on them. I cannot comment on them.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I appreciate we are straying into policy areas but the system appears to be light not on the prosecution side but on dealing with such offenders. Is the Department satisfied that the courts impose severe enough penalties under the law, as it stands, for such offences?

Mr. Sullivan

I cannot comment on the sentences handed down by the courts but I am satisfied that the deterrent effect is useful in so far as people are fined and the impact it has on other employers. Many of the inspections we make of employers reveal a high level compliance by employers with the PRSI system, which is encouraging.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The maximum penalty imposed on an employer for such an offence was £10,000 while the fines imposed on an ordinary person who commits social welfare fraud range from £50 to £100. What is the average fine imposed on an employer for such an offence? The report states that fines of £10,000 were imposed by the courts in 1998.

Mr. Sullivan

A total of £10,000 in fines were imposed in 1999.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What is the average fine imposed on an employer for such an offence?

Mr. Sullivan

Given that more than 30 employers were fined, the average fine was approximately £300.

Deputy C. Lenihan

That is not a great deal of money.

Mr. Sullivan

The maximum penalty under the legislation for cases taken on summary conviction in the courts is a fine not exceeding £1,000——

Deputy C. Lenihan

Not many fines of that amount appear to have been imposed.

Mr. Sullivan

——or a term of imprisonment not exceeding 12 months.

Deputy C. Lenihan

While I appreciate Mr. Sullivan cannot be drawn into commentary on what the courts decide, it would be helpful if some analysis was carried out of the fines imposed by the courts for such offences, as the courts seems to be light handed in their approach to dealing with such offenders. Fines of up to £1,000 can be imposed for such an offence, yet the average fine imposed for such an offence in 1999 was only £300. I appreciate Mr. Sullivan cannot comment on the courts' decision to impose such a small fine for such an offence, but we can. It is wrong that the courts are so lenient on employers who defraud the system and do not impose the maximum fine on summary conviction. There is something wrong when the average fine they impose for such an offence is only £300.

Acting Chairman

We might seek a note to gain accurate information on the amount of the penalties imposed, without straying into commenting on the level of penalties imposed.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, I would like to know the average fines imposed for the various offences in this area. This is an area about which the Secretary General cannot do anything, but we can exert influence. It is wrong that employers or individuals who defraud the system get off with paying very small fines. The imposition of fines or the handing down of a prison sentence has a strong deterrent effect, and the more severe the fine the better.

Deputy McCormack

Does the overpayments figure of £22 million for 1999 include fraud or is the figure for fraud and for overpayments separate amounts?

Mr. Sullivan

That figure includes fraud.

Deputy McCormack

To what does the figure of £48 million referred to apply?

Mr. Purcell

Perhaps I can elaborate on that. Many figures were mentioned. The cumulative outstanding overpayments figure at the end of 1999 was £47.7 million after taking into account recoveries and the level of write off as indicated by the Accounting Officer.

Deputy McCormack

Therefore, a combined figure represents the figure for fraud and the amount of overpayments.

Mr. Sullivan

Yes.

Deputy McCormack

That amounts to £22 million and an amount equivalent to one-third of that figure was recovered. Do you proceed with prosecutions where a settlement and arrears have been paid?

Mr. Sullivan

Not ordinarily. If we establish an overpayment, highlight it to the person and it is fixed up, we probably would not. However, that does not mean there would not be circumstances where, given the gravity of it, one might decide a prosecution is warranted.

Deputy McCormack

Who pays the costs in such prosecutions?

Mr. Sullivan

That is a matter for the courts to determine.

Deputy McCormack

What is the norm?

Mr. Sullivan

I am not sure. I would have to check it.

Deputy McCormack

I want to ask a question about something which I have brought up on many previous occasions. If there is a cumulative unrecovered overpayment of £47 million - in 1999 it was £22 million and at least £15 million was unrecovered - how can the Department justify that carers who become widows and continue to be carers are disqualified from receiving the carer's allowance once they are widowed? It is probably not relevant here but it is relevant to me because I have been trying for the last two and half years to get this matter resolved. I cannot get satisfaction anywhere. I am told it would cost this, that and the other amount.

Perhaps you would get information for me on how many carers in any one year become widows. If we are losing £47 million, it is a scandal that a carer who becomes a widow is disqualified for the carer's allowance simply because she receives the widow's pension, despite still being a full time carer. That information might be available.

Mr. Sullivan

I do not have that precise information but I will see if I can find it. The carer's allowance is an income maintenance allowance. When a carer becomes widowed it is replaced by a widow's pension. One of the features of the social welfare system is that people cannot and do not receive more than one benefit.

Deputy McCormack

I am trying to change that. How do I do it? I have tried every angle. A carer caring for a doubly incontinent relative in the house - for example, her husband's father - who is bed ridden for 356 days of the year receives £80.50 in carer's allowance.

Acting Chairman

I do not want the committee to get involved in a policy issue. The Deputy has been consistent in raising this at every opportunity.

Deputy McCormack

I will continue to do so when I am allowed.

Acting Chairman

It is for the Minister rather than the Secretary General.

Deputy McCormack

I have raised it so often with the Minister that I am blue in the face.

Acting Chairman

Yes, but in fairness that is not the issue.

Deputy McCormack

He will hear about it again if I raise it here.

Acting Chairman

It is no harm to copperfasten the argument.

Deputy McCormack

I appreciate the Chairman's ruling. However, I will continue to raise it because the anomaly is a scandal. That widow continues to be a carer but loses the carer's allowance despite the fact that she is caring for the person. In addition, she has lost her husband.

I wish to ask a question on the survey of the Galway situation. I note on the second page of the reply that of the 637 jobs identified, 54% of the long-term unemployed did not have the minimum qualifications required. What have we learned from the survey?

Mr. Sullivan

We learned a number of things and some of them were not surprising.

Deputy McCormack

It was not me who requested the survey on Galway but I have to deal with it now.

Acting Chairman

It is an excellent report. It took much time and effort. Startling questions arise from it. As much information as we can get will be useful. We will revisit this. It is appropriate that we get as much information as possible. Many of your staff were involved in the survey but I believe it will be the basis for remedial action elsewhere. Any information we can get, therefore, will be most beneficial now.

Mr. Sullivan

I will be delighted to do that, Chairman. The committee is aware of the background to this study. As the Chairman mentioned in his opening remarks, a second one is planned as requested by the committee. In addition, as I mentioned in the correspondence, we are undertaking a study in co-operation with the ESRI on the issue of employability generally. This report and the other report will enhance our knowledge in this area.

The study took an amount of time and effort over a number of months. Every member of the group was interviewed in depth by the personnel in the local office in Galway. They were asked a series of questions. We got advice from various people in relation to the structure of the interview, the questionnaire and the collection of the data. One of the things that came across was the low level of education of many people still signing on the live register. While we would not be competent to comment on the level of illiteracy, in a number of cases people indicated that they had literacy difficulties. It seemed to be a major barrier for many people seeking employment.

The more interesting dimension of the study was the survey carried out on the various jobs on offer in the area at that time. This arose from the question raised by the committee that if there were jobs in the area, why were people on the live register not taking them up? We found that there was a mismatch between the education requirement employers were seeking and what the people on the live register had to offer. That partly explains why the mismatch occurred.

In the letter I indicated the various percentages, the highlights from the report. The report is extremely detailed. It looks at a sample of long-term unemployed people and a sample of short-term unemployed for comparative purposes. The comparisons are interesting.

The report was finalised early this week and we are planning to undertake a second study in a different part of the country. We hope to get that under way in the next few months. If there are any particular questions on it, I will be delighted to answer them. Barry Kennedy, who is with me today, is the regional manager in the Galway area. He was heavily involved in it so he would have more detail if there are specific questions.

Acting Chairman

One thing is obvious from it. It will involve more than just your Department, Secretary General. We are talking about education, industry and commerce. It is startling that 11% of these people have never worked. Nearly one quarter of them felt they had experience to offer a prospective employer but the difficulties are obvious. They hinge on lack of education and training and go beyond the remit of your Department. It is an issue we will have revisit and I am anxious that members of the committee have as much information as possible before proceeding. We will have to make a wide ranging recommendation arising from the report. It is a useful tool for us and I appreciate your concern about the personnel hours involved.

Deputy McCormack

It is interesting to note that one-third of the jobs surveyed or identified required a third level education. That shows the type of employment that is available in Galway and that only 3% of the long-term unemployed and 10% of the short-term unemployed had the necessary qualifications for those jobs. Many of those people are unemployed because they do not have the necessary qualifications for the jobs that are on offer.

Acting Chairman

I often wondered if the situation had been exaggerated. As a former Lord Mayor I met many industrialists who came to the Cork region. One of the early questions one asked everybody was why they had come to Cork. They pointed to the fact that there were groupings in a similar industry nearby but the first priority for all prospective employers was the availability of trained and educated staff. Deputy McCormack is correct that jobs are being matched to localities. There is an excellent university in Galway but perhaps not enough people are getting to it. I am sure there will be some local comment. Does Deputy Rabbitte wish to revisit the Galway report?

Deputy Rabbitte

No, I am happy that it is being done.

Acting Chairman

It is worrying that three-quarters of the people felt they had trouble with the job and what they felt they had to offer. It identifies the key factors involved. It is a very detailed report. The Chairman was anxious that a survey would be carried out in appropriate areas and I am glad that a second survey is under way. I wish that well and we will deal with it in the future. The matter will not be closed; the committee will deal with it at a future date. This will be another occasion on which there will be a need for an interdepartmental approach because education and industry are closely involved.

Deputy McCormack

Did the survey cover Galway city and county? Did it cover all of Connemara or what area did it cover? The report states access to transport was a difficulty for 36% of the long-term unemployed. I presume this might arise for long-term unemployed people in Connemara where public transport is a bone of contention.

Mr. Sullivan

A map on page 5 of the report indicates the area that the survey covered. It covered some parts of Connemara, but not all of it.

Deputy Rabbitte

Regarding the community and voluntary service grants, will Mr. Sullivan explain why the MABS regularly feature? Why are they eligible for that type of assistance? I am referring to the dispensing of national lottery funding under Vote 40 to various organisations and all the various MABS around the country.

Acting Chairman

We will complete the consideration of the paragraphs before we move onto the Vote. The committee notes item No. 10 relating to the service contracts. However, I wish to give notice while the Secretary General is present that the committee will revisit the matter, particularly in relation to the traditional, security and cleansing areas. We will not go into it today but we will come back to it because there is a certain amount of confusion. Changes should be made to the tendering process in terms of how it is policed, the renewal of contracts, the tax clearance procedures and the evaluation of performances. I do not want it to appear that we are ignoring the matter. We will revisit it with the other Departments.

As there are no further comments on paragraphs 35 and 36, I will turn now to paragraph 37 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General which reads:

37. Recovery of Maintenance Contributions

Introduction

One Parent Family Payment (OPFP) is payment for both men and women who for a variety of reasons are bringing up a child(ren) without the support of a partner. A person who is unmarried,1 widowed, a prisoner's spouse, separated2, divorced or whose marriage has been annulled and who is no longer living with his/her spouse is eligible to apply for payment. The other schemes that may apply in this area are Deserted Wife's Allowance and Benefit.

1 Efforts to seek maintenance prior to award of OPFP is not a qualifying condition but unmarried recipients are expected to make efforts to seek maintenance after the OPFP claim is awarded.

2 It is a condition that a separated OPFP claimant must make efforts to seek maintenance before the claim is awarded.

Liable Relatives and the Recovery of Maintenance

Part III of the Social Welfare Act 1989 (as amended by Part IX of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1993) imposed an obligation on spouses to maintain each other and their children. The Act also imposed a liability on the spouses or partners of certain social welfare recipients to contribute to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs (the Department) towards payments of Lone Parent Allowance and Deserted Wife's Allowance and Benefit. The legislation was effective from 29 November 1990 and was subsequently amended to provide for OPFP when it replaced some of the earlier schemes in 1997.

The issue of maintenance payments is first and foremost a private matter for the persons concerned and if they cannot resolve the problem, for the courts through Family Law provisions. Social welfare payments act as a safety net for people who have failed to obtain adequate maintenance, but those claiming must satisfy the Department that they have made reasonable efforts to obtain such maintenance. The Department encourages the parent caring for the children to pursue the other parent for maintenance in line with the conditions of the OPFP scheme. Take-up of schemes for lone parents has grown significantly over the years. This is mainly due to social change (more births outside marriage, increasing marriage breakdown) but also because scheme conditions have been extended, thus allowing more people to remain qualified - e.g. an earnings disregard of £115 per week on the OPFP scheme now applies.

Persons who are liable to contribute to the maintenance of lone parents and their children who are being supported through OPFP are known as liable relatives. Where the lone parent has failed to secure any, or adequate, maintenance then the Department can take direct action to recover some or all of the cost of OPFP issued to the lone parent. It should be borne in mind that the Department's action to get contributions is aimed at a liable relative target group that has already shown a marked reluctance to make maintenance payments to their spouse and children.

Statistics

Table 27 - Expenditure on Schemes covered by Maintenance Provisions

	1998	1999
	£’000	£’000
One Parent Family Payment	307,039	342,730
Deserted Wife’s Allowance	6,696	6,598
Deserted Wife’s Benefit	69,772	67,707*
Total	383,507	417,035

*Provisional

Table 28 - Number of Recipients

Year	Total
1990	37,711
1991	42,446
1992	47,180
1993	51,662
1994	56,465
1995	62,195
1996	67,441
1997	75,312
1998	81,194
1999	85,342

Table 29 - Recipients by Number of Qualified Children 1999

Without Qualified Children	7,362 3
With 1 child	46,934
With 2 children	18,992
With 3 children	7,546
With 4 children	2,932
With 5 children	1,029
With 6 or more children	547
Total	85,342

3 This consists of Deserted Wife's Benefit, Residual Deserted Wife's Allowance and Prisoner's Wife's Allowance claimants.

Audit Objective

The audit objective was to assess the performance of the Department's Maintenance Recovery Unit (MRU), set up in 1990, in implementing the liable relative regulations and in particular their assessment, administration and collection of maintenance contributions under the regulations to ensure that the Department recovers all moneys rightly due to it.

The audit did not address the policy issues relating to the design of the OPFP scheme, including the maintenance payable formula.

Extent and scope of audit work carried out

- The relevant regulations and legislation were examined

- Statistics on OPFP payments and contributions from liable relatives were obtained and analysed

- The Department's procedures and systems for implementing the regulations were documented and tested

- A sample of files was examined to ascertain the current status of liable relatives who were receiving social welfare payments or were untraceable when OPFP was originally awarded in 1998

- Discussions with relevant officials in the Department

Audit Findings

(a) At 31 December 1999 the position in the MRU was as follows

- 537 liable relatives were active for maintenance contributions

- Total maintenance contributions received in 1999 from cases active in that year was £630,751 from total maintenance assessed of £1,902,563

- The target for recovery in 1999 was £700,000.

(b) The Department also calculates that 2,323 OPFP cases are in receipt of maintenance privately as a maintenance amount was included in the means assessment for the OPFP decision. These cases result in savings of £2.7m per annum and are achieved mainly by the action initiated by the Department at the processing of the OPFP claim by requiring applicants to make their own efforts to obtain maintenance.

(c) The operation of the maintenance recovery provisions also yielded savings on scheme expenditure. These savings arise where the recovery operation has resulted in the termination of a claim by the Department on receipt of new facts. From the setting up of the MRU in 1990 to 30 June 2000, 137 claims have been terminated yielding savings of almost £1.5m. Further savings of £251,000 have been achieved as a result of 192 claims being reduced in cases where Departmental action has led to the commencement of regular maintenance payments being made directly to the client.

(d) Only a liable relative in employment or self employed (35% of total) at the time of the award of OPFP are assessed for maintenance. If the liable relative is on a social welfare payment (43%) or untraceable (22%) at time of decision no further action is taken. Audit tests revealed that

- in April 2000, of 100 cases where the liable relative was in receipt of a social welfare payment at the time of OPFP decisions in 1998, 21 were no longer in receipt of such payment

- of 50 cases where the liable relative was untraceable at the time of OPFP decisions in 1998, there were 12 cases where the liable relative had made social welfare contributions or had received a social welfare payment since.

(e) At 31 December 1999 there was a 2 year backlog in assessing liable relative cases that were classified as working or self employed at time of decision on OPFP. At that date there were 14,895 cases (5,741 separated and 9,154 unmarried) on hand where the liable relative was in employment.

(f) The issue of staff resources in the MRU is currently under review in the Department. The limited staff resources in the MRU - at present 7 officials at a direct salary cost of approximately £150,000 per annum - means that it currently concentrates on pursuing maintenance payments from liable relatives who were in employment or self employment at the time of assessment as these result in a better financial return.

(g) An important consideration for MRU in deciding how best to allocate resources is that in the case of separated families the liable relative is liable for maintenance for spouse and children and that in the case of unmarried OPFP the liable relative is liable for maintenance in respect of children only. The MRU concentrates its resources on the separated cases (current total 16,127) as the maintenance payments are generally larger and the financial return to the Department is greater.

(h) Where a liable relative is employed or self employed and is informed of maintenance assessment and the liable relative makes no response, or starts payment and subsequently stops payment, the Department have no follow-up procedures.

(i) No procedures exist to review the income of a liable relative after the initial assessment for maintenance contribution.

(j) The Department's debt collection policy has the following shortcomings

- no individual debtor accounts maintained

- no aged analysis of debtors maintained

- no procedures for the follow-up of defaulters

- no debt review procedures

- no procedures for the write off of uncollectable amounts

- no legal case was taken against defaulters until 1998 when the Department forwarded 3 cases to the Chief State Solicitor for action but they have not yet reached the courts

- no risk analysis strategy i.e. the prioritisation of debt.

(k) The Department has, since November 1999, operated a new computerised debtor system for MRU. Staff are familiarising themselves with the capability of the system which is said to have the potential for the compilation of a complete database of liable relatives which will enable the MRU to operate a comprehensive debt collection procedure. The previous system in MRU was only capable of recording details of the payments made to the Department.

(l) The only output performance indicator the Department has is a savings indicator. The Department does not have detailed measurable performance indicators such as

- the proportion of liable relatives paying maintenance for their children

- the proportion of maintenance cases in collection compared to a set target

- the proportion of maintenance assessed that is actually collected

- collected maintenance total as a proportion of cost of collection.

(m) A lone parent can receive tax relief if the child resides with him/her. The qualifying period for residence is one night. The Department does not provide or seek information from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners in relation to persons in receipt of this tax allowance. A liable relative in default of maintenance payments could be in receipt of a tax allowance for the child as there is no constraint on the allowance being granted to both parents. This potential area of shared information between the Office of the Revenue Commissioners and the Department should be reviewed taking cognisance of existing legislation and data protection matters.

(n) There is inconsistency in the treatment of maintenance between different social welfare schemes. Maintenance payments for children are not assessed as means for Unemployment Assistance and some claimants refuse to transfer to OPFP for this reason. This has the effect of underestimating the number of OPFP claimants.

Conclusions

- It is important that maintenance should be fairly, firmly and efficiently enforced with appropriate safeguards for those who are not able to provide financial support.

- The total of 2,860 liable relatives (537 to the Department and 2,323 by personal arrangement) making maintenance contributions is 3.5% of total recipients of OPFP. This is a very small proportion of total liable relatives.

- While it is appreciated that it is the failure of liable relatives to maintain their spouses and/or children in the first place that gives rise to their liability to contribute to the Department, the small proportion of liable relatives making maintenance contributions, when taken with the absence of court proceedings, suggests that the Department's performance in the collection of maintenance could be interpreted as ineffective and of little deterrent value for liable relatives to meet their commitments. If the public perception is that the prospect of assessment and active pursuit, legal and otherwise, is low or non-existent then the major deterrent to discourage avoidance of maintenance contributions is severely compromised.

- The Department needs to develop a strategy to establish a climate where the payment of maintenance by a liable relative is regarded as a normal, not exceptional, contribution towards the maintenance of lone parents and/or their children.

- While acknowledging that the Department has to allocate resources to the areas where they can be most cost effective, nevertheless the MRU is unable at present to fully implement the liable relative regulations due to insufficient resources.

- The Department should ensure that systems and guidelines in the area of maintenance collection becomes an area of diligent assessment and pursuit. It must carry out the collection of maintenance due to the State in the most cost effective way. In this regard, the Department should exploit the total capability of the new computerised debtor system. MRU procedures should be updated to specifically ensure that

- controls exist to regularly review the status of liable relatives who were not liable or traceable at the time of the original OPFP assessment

- procedures are in place to record the income of liable relatives after the original assessment

- a robust debt collection policy with detailed follow up, review and write off is followed

- a risk analysis strategy is devised to develop a more focused approach to the use of resources

- indicators are put in place that effectively measure the performance of the Department in collecting maintenance contributions.

- The Department should have a monitoring system to ensure that procedures and guidelines are properly implemented and performance indicators attained.

- The Department should consider ways where relevant data on liable relatives can be exchanged with the Office of the Revenue Commissioners and speedily conclude an agreement on the matter of transfer of data.

- The Department should consider the standardisation of the treatment of maintenance payments in all means tested social welfare schemes.

The Accounting Officer offered the following comments on the report

- While one-parent families may be entitled to maintenance under Family Law, they may in practice receive little if any support from their spouses. It has been variously estimated that payments under maintenance orders are actually made regularly in only 12 - 20% of cases.

- The implementation of the statutory provisions to recover contributions from liable relatives is one element in a range of activities designed to minimise misuse/abuse of the social welfare system, including activities to detect fraud and to secure recoupment of moneys which control activities have identified as having been wrongly received.

The activities in any one area of control activity must be viewed in the wider context of the whole range of controls which the Department operates and the relative effectiveness of the various measures employed.

The Pensions Services Office, in which the OPFP administration and MRU are situated, manages an old age, widowed and lone parent client base of 500,000 and deals with 170,000 new claims and revisions per year. Out of a staff complement of around 460, 36 staff are devoted fully to control activities of various types, including 7 in the MRU specifically. In addition, Social Welfare Inspectors in each region deal with the investigative aspects of liable relative assessment in support of MRU work. The collective work of the staff currently deployed yields some £1m per annum in contributions and indirect scheme savings.

- The Department has implemented the liable relative provisions over the years as vigorously as possible having regard to the resources available and to the other control and customer service demands arising. The aggregate results from this process are estimated at some £23m over the 9 year period from end-1990 to end-1999. This aggregate amount mainly comprises an estimated £18m in reduced Lone Parent's Allowance/OPFP rates due to the requirement on applicants to satisfy the Department that they have made reasonable attempts to obtain maintenance. The balance is made up of £3.2m in direct contributions from liable relatives and scheme savings of £1.8m indirectly arising through liable relative investigative work.

- The Department is currently undertaking a widescale review of overall staffing in the Pensions Services Office in the light of changing workloads and other priorities. As part of this, the options for stepping up activity in maintenance recovery and other control areas are being assessed. In addition, a small database system developed by the Unit in the mid-1990s was recently replaced by a more comprehensive debt management system and staff are being trained to use this enhanced system as a means of tracking liabilities and identifying defaulters.

- Furthermore, a major review of financial support for lone parents has recently been completed by the Department. One of the objectives of the current scheme is to support and encourage lone parents to consider employment as an alternative to long-term welfare dependency. On foot of this review4, a new programme of supports to assist lone parents to find employment is being developed. The review also put forward a number of possible options for enhanced action in the area of maintenance recovery from liable relatives and these are being considered.

- The review also addresses the matter of liable relatives receiving tax relief for their child(ren) while they are not contributing to the cost of the social welfare payment to their spouse and/or child together with improving data transfer arrangements with the Revenue Commissioners in this regard.

- The question of inconsistencies in treatment of maintenance between different social welfare schemes has been considered in the context of the review. Any changes in this regard would require legislation.

The Department is also making arrangements for greater localisation of the OPFP scheme. Ultimately it is envisaged that the administration of this scheme will be transferred to social welfare local offices and a working group has been established to progress this. The localisation of claims would, inter alia, enable a more effective use of staff resources in this area and closer control for payments.

Consideration is being given to targeting a percentage of cases where an employed or self-employed liable relative either does not respond to an assessment or begins contributing and then defaults, subject to an assessment of the impact of this on new case work and the resulting overall yield within the resources available. It should be noted that some reviews do take place either at the request of the liable relative or when the Department receives information which might affect the liability due by the liable relative.

4 Review of the One Parent Family Payment September 2000 Programme Evaluation Report No. 7

- The Department is conscious of the need to enforce the maintenance provisions fairly, firmly and efficiently. Where there are resource constraints and conflicting priorities, the focus is on getting maximum return for resource allocation.

- The Department has to work within a finite level of staff resources and has had to make choices in deploying these to deal with an increasing claimload and to deal with controls having regard to the risks and the return on the effort involved. However, the Department is currently engaged in a widescale review of overall staffing in the light of changing workloads and is reviewing the resource requirements of the Maintenance Recovery function specifically within that process.

- It is the Department's intention to initiate a regular number of cases for prosecution under the liable relatives provisions each year. The fact that no cases submitted have yet reached court is outside the Department's direct control, but does not indicate any unwillingness on the part of the Department to take prosecutions.

- The level of recourse to the scheme(s) and international experience both demonstrate the marked resistance to contribute which exists among people who walk away from their responsibilities. This is the backdrop against which the Department operates. The position will be reviewed in the light of the experience gained.

The extension of the Family Mediation Service, as is already happening, is also expected to make an impact in the case of couples prepared to participate in mediation.

- The new computer system will be used increasingly in support of maintenance recovery work. The degree to which the other matters outlined in the Report can be achieved - will depend, inter alia, on the impact of the new computer system.

I will ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to comment on paragraph 37.

Mr. Purcell

This is a relatively long paragraph. It is probably a misnomer because it contains nine or ten pages. To set the scene, persons who are liable to contribute to the maintenance of lone parents and their children who are being supported through the Department's one parent family payment scheme are known as liable relatives. Where the lone parent has failed to secure any or adequate maintenance, the Department can take direct action to recover from those liable relatives some or all of the cost of the payment issued to the lone parent.

This part of my report is devoted to the results of an audit of the Department's performance in recovering maintenance contributions from liable relatives in such cases. The cost to the State in 1999 of schemes covered by maintenance provisions was £417 million, paid to approximately 85,000 recipients. The maintenance recovery unit within the Department, set up in 1990, has the responsibility of assessing and collecting maintenance contributions. It has a staff of seven.

In 1999 the unit collected £630,000 from total assessed maintenance contributions of £1.9 million. However, these figures do not tell the whole story. As there was a two year backlog at the end of 1999 in assessing liable relatives for contributions, the potential amount for collection could be much higher, and it probably is much higher. To give the committee an idea of the scale of the problem, almost 15,000 unassessed cases were on hand at year end.

Looking at it from another angle, only 537 liable relatives are making maintenance contributions to the Department while another 2,323 are contributing directly to the lone parents. A sobering statistic is that the number of liable relatives making any contribution as a percentage of the number of those in receipt of one parent family payment is 3.5%. I appreciate that the Department must prioritise the use of its resources in the exercise of its very wide remit, but I would have expected more progress to have been made in the area of maintenance recovery over the last seven to ten years.

The long and the short of the current situation is that even if one is assessed - and it is a big if at this stage given the large backlog - nothing will happen if one does not bother to make maintenance payments to the Department or if one starts those payments and then defaults on them. Apart from the monetary loss to the Exchequer, on the grounds of equity alone, it is not fair to the small number who are meeting their commitments and responsibilities.

There is much more in this report, together with the comments of the Accounting Officer, but the main message I would like to go out from it is that the Department needs to develop a strategy to establish a climate where the payment of maintenance by a liable relative is regarded as the norm rather than the exception as it is clearly at present. In circumstances where the public perception is that the prospect of assessment and active pursuit is non-existent, the major deterrent to discourage avoidance of maintenance contributions is severely compromised.

Mr. Sullivan

As the Comptroller and Auditor General said, there are 70,000 one parent family payments. The liable relative provision has been in operation for a number of years. It is a very difficult area for us. One parent families are entitled to maintenance under family law, but it has been variously estimated that payments under maintenance orders are only actually made in approximately 12% to 20% of cases. It is difficult to get maintenance payments. In the separated cases, it is a condition of the scheme that claimants must make an effort to seek maintenance before the claim is awarded. In the unmarried cases, they are expected to seek it after the award has been made.

There are only seven people in that maintenance unit, as the Comptroller and Auditor General said, but that does not reflect the total number of people who are involved in one way or another either at the initial claims stage or in investigating cases. We found that in the cases we have looked at a relative would already be on a social welfare payment in approximately 43% of cases, approximately one-fifth would be untraceable and one-third would be in employment. We have tried to concentrate our efforts on those where we thought we would get the best value for the input of resources. That in part would explain the numbers, as the Comptroller and Auditor General said.

We need to do some further work in this area. We completed a review of the one parent family payment scheme in September as part of the Government's programme of expenditure reviews and we identified many of these issues. We need to look at the issue of resourcing in the pensions office to see if we can put additional resources in that area. Part of the difficulty is that the value we get out of additional resources in this area is not as good as we would get in other areas of the organisation. That is a management problem.

The second thing that has changed is that up to now many people were on social welfare, but with the declining numbers on unemployment benefits those figures are lower. There is more scope for chasing more people than there was previously. We need to look at that. The review the Department carried out also looked at the area of maintenance and whether people should be allowed to retain some maintenance as an incentive to pursue liable relatives. That is under consideration in the Department as well. As the Comptroller and Auditor General's paragraph shows, we have put a new stand alone computer system into the area to try to track some of these cases. We need to do more additional work.

This unit is just one of a number of control activities in the pensions area. We also have an external control unit and a debt management area in the pensions office. This is just one dimension to the control of lone parent payments generally.

Deputy Rabbitte

It is hard to argue with the Comptroller and Auditor General's 3.5%, but it seems to be an area fraught with a great deal of difficulty. I am concerned that, depending on what strategies the Department devises, the person deserted or left stranded could take all the heat from the Department while the gadfly who visited overnight and has now left is unconcerned. We are usually talking about women who have been deserted. They could be in a vulnerable position at that time and making the receipt of their payment, for example, contingent on finding out where the will-o'-the-wisp now is puts additional pressure on them. It is a difficult issue.

I accept that 3.5% seems a small amount, but all types of complex situations could arise. I have seen cases where the individual is tracked down and it leads to a great deal of unpleasantness and violent interaction with the former spouse or partner. Maintenance is paid for three weeks and then stopped. Perhaps the Accounting Officer could comment on that. How many are in employment, untraceable and unemployed?

Mr. Sullivan

This is an issue which we must deal with sensitively. We are dealing with cases where people have failed to obtain maintenance. As regards the figures, approximately 43% of the total liable relatives over the years were on social welfare payments, mostly on unemployment benefits, 22% were untraceable and 35% were in employment or were self-employed. Those figures have changed in more recent times in that the number on social welfare has decreased. That is just the cumulative figure. There is an infrastructural change. It is an area we must treat sensitively because of the various issues and different circumstances which can arise.

Deputy Rabbitte

What is the total budget for the one parent family allowance? How much does it cost?

Mr. Sullivan

It is of the order of £343 million.

Deputy C. Lenihan

How many people receive that amount?

Mr. Sullivan

Some 70,000 people receive that amount, of whom 52,000 are unmarried, 16,000 are separated and 1,500 are widowed.

Deputy Rabbitte

It is an interesting report which is worth studying. It is a delicate area in which to proceed unless we can switch the focus in terms of better technology and tracking the liable relative, which is a man in most cases.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Mr. Sullivan said that 22% are untraceable. Does that mean they cannot be tracked down to meet their commitments?

Mr. Sullivan

We cannot track them.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is that 22% of the larger figure?

Mr. Sullivan

Those figures are based on the number of cases we have looked at over a number of years since 1990.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Since it came in.

Mr. Sullivan

As we made improvements in our systems over the years, such as the allocation of social insurance or public service numbers, the trace is getting better.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What are the figures for each year starting in 1990?

Mr. Sullivan

I do not have a breakdown for each year but so far it has been 22%. That is down to approximately 15% at this stage. We are tracing more people than we were previously.

Deputy C. Lenihan

There is a link between the introduction of the social insurance number. One number fits all.

Mr. Sullivan

Trying to make the link can be difficult, but we have put a lot of effort into having a unique identifier for people over a number of years. We have tidied up all the procedures for the allocation of RSI numbers, which we have been doing ourselves since about 1990. A lot of work has been done in that area. That is one of the contributory factors in the reduction of the percentage of no trace cases.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Why are they untraceable? Have they left the State?

Mr. Sullivan

They are mainly in the UK.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The implication is that one cannot re-enter the workforce and become untraceable.

Mr. Sullivan

Yes.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Unless one makes up another identity.

Mr. Sullivan

That is always a problem.

Deputy C. Lenihan

What is the anecdotal evidence from the inspectors etc? Is it that people are re-entering the workforce in another location with another number? Where is the problem?

Mr. Sullivan

That is difficult to say, given the current systems and the information we ask of people. We went over this a number of years. We have, as I said, tightened up the procedures for the issue of RSI numbers. We took it over from the Revenue Commissioners. It is in our interest to make sure people have only one RSI number for the purposes of crediting their contributions. We insist on a certain level of evidence before we release an RSI number.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The stories from England are almost legendary in this regard - I suppose I should not be saying that - with people making multiple claims and so on. Is there a significant problem here of people making multiple claims? Mr. Sullivan said the procedures have been tightened up in regard to RSI, but what proofs are required to achieve a number?

Mr. Sullivan

The person has to give us their birth certificate, passport and proof of where they are living, such as an ESB bill or other form of identification.

Deputy C. Lenihan

A passport and birth certificate is the basic requirement. I get worried when I hear "ESB bill" because I have seen——

Mr. Sullivan

It is just for proof of residence.

Deputy C. Lenihan

——significant voter fraud in my constituency, where people present ESB bills or letters. That is not acceptable, is it?

Mr. Sullivan

We would be very concerned if somebody in their thirties or forties who we could not identify suddenly appeared on the scene. We would have to check them very thoroughly because we would expect to have them in our system. Over recent years, we have been issuing RSI numbers in respect of children. They get their RSI numbers at 16 or 17 years of age. Everybody should have an RSI number and they should be traceable in our system. There might be good reason for them not being traceable. However, they should be traceable if they were here before.

Deputy C. Lenihan

The minimum requirement is a passport and a birth certificate.

Mr. Sullivan

The long version of the birth certificate is required.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is that the original form?

Mr. Sullivan

The long version has more detail than the short version. By definition, it is difficult to detect if people are making multiple claims. We are not aware, however, of any serious problem in relation to that.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Mr. Sullivan said that 22% are untraceable. This is a sensitive area, as Deputy Rabbitte said, particularly for lone parents. I noticed the figures in the earlier paragraph for prosecutions against lone parent defrauders are very low, which is important. It appears single parents, be they men or women, do not feature highly in the defrauding stakes. That is the evidence from the cases sent forward for prosecution.

Mr. Sullivan

That is true.

Deputy C. Lenihan

It is important to get that positive message out because there is an assumption by some people that single mothers etc. are defrauding the system left, right and centre, which is not the case.

Mr. Sullivan

It is a very sensitive area. There is a couple of cases in the pipeline.

Deputy C. Lenihan

It is only a couple. It is important to say that because single mothers are often the victims of all sorts of inappropriate stereotyping. It is good to have the figures.

Chairman

This is a very important paragraph. Some of the public are a bit cynical about matters such as the recovery of maintenance contributions. I agree totally with Deputy Rabbitte. The aspects of this which we might discuss are policy matters. The Deputy is right that this is a very delicate matter. It is important that the people needing maintenance are not put in a worse position than the one they are in. It is very important that whatever we recommend does not make them a target.

The Department needs to chase the real culprits. I cannot disagree with Deputy Rabbitte's description of those people. This must be pursued if the maintenance requirements are to have credibility. We know who are the culprits. I said a couple of years ago in Dáil Éireann that if I asked for the figures for unmarried mothers I would have no difficulty getting the exact figure, but nobody seems to care much about the fathers. Deputy Rabbitte is correct to say the heat has been turned up, to some extent, on the parent who has left in order to make him or her undertake their responsibilities.

The public has become cynical about this. The 3.5% recovery figure is frightening. I accept that some people are unemployed, on social welfare and so on. However, if the Department treats this in a casual fashion, the male population will treat it in a much more casual fashion and the situation will get worse. We need to identify the real target, which is the person who is responsible for paying maintenance, not the person receiving it.

We altered the situation in about 1990 and made it less difficult for lone parents. I agree with Deputy Rabbitte that it is mainly women who need this support. We were making it very difficult for them and I would not like us to return to that situation. However, at the same time, the Comptroller and Auditor General has drawn attention to the abysmal 3.5% recovery figure. Does Mr. Sullivan wish to comment on that?

Mr. Sullivan

We chase the liable relative but, clearly, we need the co-operation of the woman to identify him. After that, she gets her payment and we have to chase the liable relative.

Chairman

It must be recognised that there is huge pressure in some of these situations, with threats of violence and intimidation. The policy has been decided elsewhere and we are now dealing with enforcement of it, which has not been great to date. While I appreciate that no legal action was taken against debt defaulters up to 1998 and that there is a new computer system, enforcement has been very poor. I do not want it to appear as if we are coming down on the Department, but we defend the recipients of the maintenance.

This is a very important report and I am glad of the comments in it. As my colleagues have said, this is a delicate issue from the point of view of the recipients and we do not want to put in place regulations which will make their lives more difficult. However, this has been treated very casually, not just this or last year but over the past 20 years. There is need for a cultural change on that particular aspect. The public are complaining about the casual approach to these people.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I do not know whether the Department does this but I am curious about it because the matter arises in my constituency workload. If the former partner of a bona fide deserted person is defaulting on maintenance payments, does the Department communicate that fact to the local authority? I pose the question because I have come across many cases of people who have been deserted by a partner who does not pay for the maintenance of the child. At the same time, the local authority is on the case, almost insinuating that the former partner is still living in the house. If a bona fide deserted person has been left without maintenance payments does the Department communicate that in a proper, clear and unequivocal way to the local authority? I get the impression that local authorities, in their relentless search to get more rent out of very poor people, are almost insinuating in many cases that those people are still harbouring the ex-partner. Local authorities can insist on more rent on the assumption that the fellow is still around when he is not, but is there any way of communicating that to the local authority?

Mr. Sullivan

As I understand it, we do not. The only circumstances in which we would do so would be if there was an issue of cohabitation, which is a very complex issue.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Yes, of course. That is what I mean. We must be sensitive in this area. If a couple is cohabiting and the man decamps and becomes untraceable, the woman is left with a child or two, is not getting her maintenance and will apply to the Department for support in the form of one-parent family payments. The local authority, meanwhile, may be down on her case for rent. In such an instance, does the Department not communicate in a definitive way to say that such an individual is a bona fide deserted person?

Mr. Sullivan

No, we do not, unless we are specifically asked. The person has proof that he or she is in receipt of a payment from us, which should be some evidence that it is a bona fide case.

Chairman

Perhaps we could wrap up this discussion now. I am noting that there has been a new computer system since November 1999. The performance up to now has been measured purely in terms of savings. The new system hopes to improve the potential for the Department and the Revenue Commissioners to share information, especially in the important area of tax relief. If Members agree, we might revisit this matter in six months' time to see what progress has been made. Is that agreed? Agreed. We will dispose of that paragraph now. I am opening up the full discussion and I will ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce part of paragraph 10 that we mentioned earlier relating to the Vote of this Department.

Mr. Purcell

I would like to quickly dispose of the social, community and family affairs element of paragraph 10. The Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs was one of four Civil Service organisations that were examined as part of a cross-departmental audit of service contracts, including cleaning, security and other mainline functions. The Department came well out of the examination in that this aspect of its activity was generally well managed. The Accounting Officer has undertaken to tighten up procedures where necessary. Since I am often accused of being negative about things, I would like to emphasise that the Department came fairly well out of this examination of its management of the service contracts it handles.

Chairman

I am sure, Mr. Sullivan, you will be glad to hear the Comptroller and Auditor General's comments on paragraph 10. You probably do not want to add to them.

Mr. Sullivan

I always add to positive comments and constructive criticisms.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Are we on the general Vote now, and not dealing with service contracts?

Chairman

We are dealing with service contracts plus Vote 40 and the three other Votes, obviously. Does the Deputy have questions on the Vote?

Deputy C. Lenihan

I have looked into questions other than those concerning service contracts. Are there any in-house service contracts being undertaken now? You referred to cleaning projects.

Mr. Sullivan

We do have a small number of cleaners directly employed.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Is that an anachronism nowadays? Is it being phased out to a large extent?

Mr. Sullivan

Partly.

Deputy C. Lenihan

I know there are trade union problems in all this.

Mr. Sullivan

We have 162 buildings around the country and much of the cleaning is done by contract work. In our headquarters building we have service officers who do the cleaning. We currently have 75 cleaning and two security contracts in operation relating to companies or individuals providing cleaning and security services to the Department.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Will you be checking the minimum wage requirements on those contracts? That legislation was introduced since this Vote, but will you be checking on that matter?

Mr. Sullivan

I am not aware that we do.

Deputy C. Lenihan

These are just service contracts and maybe the Comptroller and Auditor General has a view on that matter.

Chairman

Perhaps we can ask if he has.

Mr. Purcell

I may be able to clarify that, with your permission Chairman. Certainly, in the case of cleaning contracts the rates of pay are laid down by the joint labour committee. Any increases recommended by that committee are factored into the ongoing payments under the contract, so the wages for that particular area are very much in line with statutory requirements.

Deputy C. Lenihan

Are they verifiable? I am trying to establish that there is no way a contractor can, through a mixture of work practices, contract out of this.

Mr. Purcell

I would not like to comment on that, but the wages are there and they are policed. I understand from my days in the audit unit of the old Department of Labour that inspectors regularly check that the proper rates are being paid.

Chairman

We will take that as accurate then.

Deputy Rabbitte

Will Mr. Sullivan say something briefly about the success of the part-time jobs allowance scheme? Are there many people participating in it?

Mr. Sullivan

The part-time job allowance scheme is one of a range of our employment support measures. We also operate the back to work allowance which is also part time. There are only about 400 or 500 people on the part-time job incentive scheme at present.

Deputy Rabbitte

Do you call a halt to it at a particular stage, or is it ongoing.

Mr. Sullivan

That is ongoing.

Deputy Rabbitte

Could a person theoretically be on that scheme for the rest of their lives?

Mr. Sullivan

In theory, yes. It is different from the back to work allowance which is stepped down over a period of years.

Deputy Rabbitte

You might answer the question on the MABS.

Mr. Sullivan

Yes.

Deputy Rabbitte

I do not want an elaborate answer. I am just curious to know why they are in the community-voluntary category.

Mr. Sullivan

As I understand it, that is just a list of all the grants under that service, which are broken down into the community development programme, grants for locally based community and family supports, and money advice and budgeting services. It is one of the sub-headings within that grants total, and that is why they are included here. It is an alphabetical list.

Deputy Rabbitte

Is the MABS not effectively an arm of the Department at this stage?

Mr. Sullivan

They are private companies which are set up and grant-aided by the Department.

Deputy Rabbitte

There is not an isolated figure anywhere that I can find for the support given to the MABS.

Mr. Sullivan

Some £4.5 million this year.

Deputy Rabbitte

Is there?

Mr. Sullivan

There are 50 projects around the country. We have been progressively increasing them. They came in in 1992 and in recent years we have been progressively increasing the number. There are now 50 of them.

Deputy Rabbitte

It seems very valuable from what I know. I was curious to know whether they were dependent, if that is the word, which I presume it is not, on this top up.

Mr. Sullivan

As I said, they are funded by the Department, and Comhairle, previously the NSSB, is heavily involved in training money advisers and the management committees of the various projects.

Deputy Rabbitte

Will you outline to the committee why the Department has targeted some part-time workers in different parts of the country in what appears to be an effort to drive them into full-time employment?

Mr. Sullivan

I think what the Deputy is referring to is the general applicability of the genuinely seeking work and availability for work condition on unemployment.

Deputy Rabbitte

The problem is there are two different kinds of answers. I do not think it is general applicability. It is not being applied in some areas, but it is in others. For example, my colleague, Deputy Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, and the entire tourism industry in south Kerry has had considerable problems this year and I have had them in my constituency. Other colleagues do not know about what I am talking.

I would like to put this question to you because you might think I am going in the opposite direction to which I am going. With some of my colleagues, I met CERT yesterday. CERT made the point that it had a requirement for 125,000 recruits over the next four years. It has no prospect, of course, of getting those in Ireland and we hope Poland, Croatia or wherever will help to make up that number.

One prospect is inviting back into the workforce married women, in particular, or women working in the home on a part-time basis. This suits the industry. If you look at a constituency like south Kerry where the product is quite well developed and there are hotels and so on, it is suitable for women to come in and make the beds in the morning or whatever and work 23 hours per week. What you are doing - I do not mean that in a personal sense - is that you are driving the women back into the home because it is not worth the candle. If they are laid off for a period and they draw the labour, as they always have done, the labour exchange will ask them if they are looking for work. Many of the women honestly answer by saying they are not looking for work, if by that the labour exchange means a 39 hour or a 40 hour week. They will say they are available and are anxious to work for 20 hours per week. In an era when atypical working and so on is becoming the pattern, where we encourage it and where, taking the example of CERT, that kind of labour is very valuable, it seems that this is counterproductive.

It reached absurd levels in my area where 123 lollipop ladies who for the past 25 years have been drawing the labour during the period schools are closed were refused. I am not sure what the point is in that they are not going to get jobs in Intel. They work two hours per day. It is an important job protecting our children crossing the road. They work two hours per day, maybe eight, nine or ten hours per week, and they draw unemployment assistance during the six or seven weeks the school is closed. It was stopped this year. I have not been able to locate the locus of what or who is driving this. It may be just individuals who have a particular view of life, that we should all be working 50 hours per week, who want to try to increase the surplus because it is not adequate at the moment and who want to build up the coffers to build a stadium or whatever. It has to be rethought.

Mr. Sullivan

There is nothing specific on that other than the general applicability of the conditionality conditions for unemployment assistance in that you must be looking for a full-time job. The fact that we are reaching and testing some of these people, which maybe we had not done before, is probably an indication of the reduction in the live register. These people, if they are on the live register, are declaring that they are available for and are seeking full-time work. That is the requirement and if they do not do that, they will be subject to——

Deputy Rabbitte

I will not labour the point——

Mr. Sullivan

That is something that needs to be looked at.

Deputy Rabbitte

I have tried to put forward some kind of economic rationale for the maintenance of the status quo. I do not have it with me, but Deputy Breeda Moynihan-Cronin received a response to a parliamentary question which spelled out very clearly that it is not just the general application and it is not life as normal. It admits that the situation in south Kerry is different. I have not been able to get such a response in regard to my area but I know it is happening there.

What is the merit in a woman who is employed as a helper on a bus transporting disabled pupils to a school for chronically disabled people which closes for a shorter period than normal schools - five weeks, I think - and who has always enjoyed unemployment benefit for those five weeks, being cut off? You tell me you are only implementing the rules. The rules have always been there, including for the past ten years since she has been doing that job. What is the point of the exercise? This woman wants to work with the handicapped and does not want to work in Intel or for those guys who run the world or the transnational corporations who want us all to go out to work. She does not want that. What is the point?

Mr. Sullivan

The point is exactly the point the Deputy made. When someone applies for unemployment benefit, there are certain conditions associated with it. The fact that they have got it in the past would have been a reflection on the fact that we had not got around to testing it. We expended a lot of effort over recent years on the control side and on the conditionality aspects of unemployment payments. There were no jobs there at one time for people but now there are jobs and in order to get unemployment benefit, you have to be available for and genuinely seek work. If you say you are not looking for or are not interested in work, there is no entitlement to unemployment benefit.

Deputy Rabbitte

Is it not the ultimate in the Irish solution to the Irish problem? Deputy Lenihan spoke about multiple claims. If you go into the labour exchange and say you are looking for work, you are likely to get it. If, however, you say you are not available for or looking for full-time work, which is an honest statement, but are available for part-time work, you do not get it.

Mr. Sullivan

It should not be as automatic as that in relation to your availability for work. You will be asked, and increasingly people are asked what efforts have been made to look for work. It is not as automatic as some people might suggest.

Deputy Rabbitte

I do not want to labour the point but I think the Department should accept there is a requirement in the economy for part-time labour and there are people who could be available but only on a part-time basis. A mad rush to drive everyone into the workforce is counterproductive economically and it is certainly counterproductive socially.

Chairman

To look again at the Vote, we have dealt with payments, fraud and so on. There was fraud of £12 million in 1999. We note there are 50 welfare schemes and £2.61 billion was spent. A sum of £2.11 billion is spent on insurance. It is a lot of money for which to have responsibility. While our job is to pursue fraud, the percentage is reasonable considering all that. It went down in 1998 but it is back up by over £2 million again. I would have expected the reverse to be the case. It dropped from £14.5 million in 1997, but considering the much smaller number on the live register, the availability of work and so on, should the figure not have dropped more in 1999? Do you expect a downward trend for this year?

Mr. Sullivan

I do not know what else is included. With the numbers on the live register dropping we have more time to find cases where there may be over-payments. That may partly explain it. The number of claims the Department deals with has increased because while the numbers have reduced on the unemployment side, there have been increases in other areas. There are a number of different factors involved. Our ability to be able to identify cases and record them properly is also affecting the situation.

However, the average value is going down, which is probably indicative of the fact that we are probably catching cases sooner than previously, despite the increases in benefit rates. Our aim would be to try to get the figures down.

Chairman

We have had a very good discussion on this. The committee will revisit the maintenance recovery issue, which we discussed. We have also agreed that the question of the live register will be revisited when we get the second study, which is in addition to the Galway study.

Next week in private session we will deal with what to do on possible tax evasion and abuse of social welfare within the construction industry. There has been a wide-ranging discussion on that. In view of these three outstanding issues we will not note Vote 40 today. Is that agreed?

Deputy C. Lenihan

What is the construction industry issue?

Chairman

It arises from the discrepancy between the figures on the live register and the CSO survey. We agreed to investigate this last July and it is ongoing. We met the CSO, the ICTU and others. We will revisit it next Thursday in private session to decide what to do about it.

Deputy C. Lenihan

There was correspondence last week from the Revenue Commissioners——

Chairman

I do not want to go into that. Given the issue I mentioned and the two other issues - the Galway study and the new one, which I hope we will revisit in six months - I propose that we do not note Vote 40 today. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The agenda for the meeting on Thursday, 2 November is as follows: In private session, minutes of the previous meeting, matters arising, correspondence and reports received, the work programme, Office of the Revenue Commissioners - 1999 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Appropriation Accounts - Vote 9. In public session, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform - 1999 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts - Votes 19-21, inclusive, and Vote 23; the Courts Service - 1999 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts - Vote 22. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The meeting is now adjourned until Thursday, 2 November at 11 a.m. I again thank Mr. Sullivan and his staff and the officials from the Department of Finance for their attendance.

The Committee adjourned at 12.55 p.m.