Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 30 Jun 1988

Vol. 382 No. 11

Written Answers. - Social Welfare Payments System Review.

62.

asked the Minister for Social Welfare in relation to the Craig Gardner Review of the social welfare payments system, the most prevalent forms of social welfare abuse or fraud which were detected; and the criteria that were used to establish that social welfare claims contained a clear element of fraud or abuse.

The firm of Craig Gardner was commissioned to carry out a security review of the Department's payment systems to establish where the schemes were most at risk to abuse and to recommend cost-effective remedies. As part of the exercise, the consultants assisted the Department in developing statistical sampling methods to estimate the level of social welfare abuse.

A review of a sample of disability benefit and unemployment payment claims in the Dublin area indicated that the most prevalent types of fraud in terms of monetary impact were concurrent working and claiming, failure to disclose self-employment and personation.

The sample was submitted to a special team of inspectors and investigators of the Department who reviewed every aspect of each claim. This review included interviews with the claimants, and with employers. In drawing their conclusions as to the validity of each claim, the team used a uniform definition of fraud or abuse. The criteria were that the claim had to contain a false statement knowingly made by the claimant for the purpose of obtaining benefit; the statement must have been deliberate and there must have been a material gain.

Following the application of these criteria, each claim was classified as being "clearly genuine", suspicious for a stated reason or "clearly fraudulent".

63.

asked the Minister for Social Welfare in relation to the Craig Gardner Review of the social welfare payments (a) the way in which the survey of public attitudes was undertaken (b) who were the people surveyed (c) the size of the sample surveyed and the way in which it was selected (d) if it covered the entire country, or Dublin only (e) the market research company which was used for this work and (f) the questions asked which established the conclusion referred to in the summary of the findings that problems begin with overall public attitudes to social welfare abuse.

A survey on public attitudes to social welfare abuses was commissioned by Craig Gardner as part of their security review of the Department's major payment systems. The information sought in relation to the survey is as follows:

(a) The survey was undertaken on the basis of personal face-to-face interviews carried out in the interviewees' homes.

(b), (c), (d) The survey covered a nationally representative sample of 1,398 men and women aged 16 and over. Fifty sampling points were randomly selected to reflect geographical distribution of the national population and interviewees were selected at each sampling point on a quota basis with interlocked controls by sex, marital status, age and social class.

(e) The survey was conducted by Irish Marketing Surveys (IMS) as part of that company's regular Omnibus survey.

(f) The following statements were read to the interviewees and they were asked to give their reaction to each statement by stating whether they "agree strongly", "agree slightly", "neither agree nor disagree", "disagree slightly", "disagree strongly":

(i) "There are already rules and penalties designed to stop people wrongfully claiming Social Welfare benefits, but the rules are not adequately enforced";

(ii) "People who get the dole when they shouldn't are actually cheating the ordinary honest taxpayer";

(iii) "Much about what you hear about people getting away with false claims for the dole and sickness benefit are just stories blown up by the newspapers and TV";

(iv) "With the dole being so small, you can't blame people for drawing the dole and doing nixers";

(v) "The rules regarding the dole and sickness benefit should not be made stricter because people genuinely in need would suffer";

(vi) "People who deliberately claim more welfare benefits than they are entitled to should be pursued and punished severely";

(vii) "It is not surprising that a lot of people are drawing the dole because there are so few jobs around".

Top
Share