Vol. 463 No. 7
11 Mr. J. Walsh asked the Minister for Social Welfare the total level of fraud in the social welfare system for 1995; the number in 1995 who have been brought before the courts on fraud charges; the number of convictions achieved; the value of fraudulent overpayments in the cases prosecuted; and the cost to his Department of its fraud prevention and detection measures. [7302/96]
Social Welfare expenditure in 1995 amounted to £4.2 billion. Savings attributed to the various control activities undertaken by my Department were some £124.5 million of which £11.6 million is identifiable as fraud.
The overall cost of the various control measures in 1995 amounted to some £8 million, including salaries, overtime, travel and subsistence costs.
The detection of fraud and abuse of social welfare payments is an integral part of the day to day work of my Department, which has a programme of ongoing specialist control activities under way as part of its drive against fraud, abuse and unwarranted recourse to social welfare. There are some 570 staff whose work at local, regional and national level is either entirely or partly related to the control of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system.
These units, one of which works in conjunction with staff of the Revenue Commissioners, carry out inspections of employers, investigate cases of concurrent working and claiming of social welfare payments, review customers' means for assistance payments and monitor their on-going entitlements to social welfare payments.
A total of 60 social welfare prosecutions were finalised by the courts in 1995. Of these, 35 were people who fraudulently obtained payments, while 25 were employers. Convictions were obtained in 54 cases — 30 claimants and 24 employers.
The value of the overpayments involved in the cases prosecuted amounted to £121,298, while employers were prosecuted for failure to remit PRSI amounting to £62,486.
