asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to the Report of the Committee on Public Accounts which refers to overpayments of social assistance amounting to £77,616; if he will explain how such overpayments occurred; and what action is being taken to avoid them in the future.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Assistance Overpayments.
11.
I am aware of the reference in the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts to overpayments of social assistance amounting to £77,616 which were unrecovered at 31st March, 1969. This figure represents the cumulative total of social assistance overpayments which were neither recovered nor written off since 1953 when the present accounting system was set up. The unrecovered balance of social assistance overpayments recorded in 1968-69 is £25,572 which represents .08 per cent of the total expenditure on these services in that year. Overpayments of social assistance arise mainly from the concealment or non-disclosure by claimants of their full means and, additionally in the case of unemployment assistance, from concurrent working and signing of the unemployed register.
While every effort is made by the officers of my Department to carry out a reasonable investigation of claims before they are passed for payment, the procedures which would be necessary to eliminate all overpayments arising from misrepresentations by claimants would delay the determination of honest claims — which are the vast majority — to an unacceptable extent and would increase administration costs to an unjustifiable degree.
Long-term awards, such as pensions, are periodically re-investigated in order to reduce the possibility that a fraudulent claim would continue to be paid indefinitely. There is and has been for many years a special section in my Department for dealing with fraudulent claims to unemployment assistance and benefit. For a detailed description of the steps taken to prevent payment of unemployment assistance or benefit during employment, I would refer the Deputy to the memorandum furnished by my Department to the Committee of Public Accounts and published by them as an appendix to the report on which the Deputy's question is based.
That covers the period since 1953, does it?
Yes.
They did not get away with much, did they?
No.
The Minister is putting the blame on the applicants instead of on the officials in his Department.
The Deputy cannot have it both ways. I am frequently blamed for having too strict investigations and too strict surveillance on recipients of unemployment assistance and other social welfare payments. This question accuses us of not being strict enough.
The blame should not be put on the applicants, it should be on the officials in the Department.