SAM doesn't call what he did fraud. To him, the real fraudsters are the guys who pull up outside the dole office in big cars with their radios blaring. They stand in line to collect their dole cheques and their mobile phones start ringing.

People just laugh, he says, at the farce of it all. But then it's not just social welfare fraud. The mobile men are drug dealers and the dole is a front for the proceeds of their highly lucrative cash business.

By working and claiming for more than two years, Sam received £139.50 a week: £64.50 in dole and £75 from his teaching job. Now 26, he's been signing on since he was old enough to qualify for dole.

His 18th birthday meant he didn't have to sleep rough any more. "I've seen so many people slip on to the dole and they have no idea how to get off it."

Off the top of his head, he can think of five friends who are also working and signing on. Three of them are kitchen porters. "They are earning £2.50 an hour and are treated like scum. They do the job because there's a free meal at the end of the day and they have dreams in their bellies."

The fourth is a petrol pump attendant. He hates his job, but not as much as he hates being on the dole. Of the five, he is the only one who declares his work to the dole office. They dock his payments accordingly. The fifth works in a clothes shop two evenings a week. He makes around £12 a shift.

Sam has signed off at times in his eight year "career". He has worked abroad and once he worked on a Government scheme with mentally handicapped youngsters. He made £27 a week.

When he was teaching, it was a legitimate taxed job with a Government institution. He told his dole office he thought the job might last for two or three weeks.

It lasted for two years and he was investigated by a social welfare inspector. Sam told him he had declared he was working and had nothing to hide.

"We're the easiest target in the world," he says. "People who complain that life is easy on the dole have clearly never been on the dole. Ninety nine per cent of people who are on the dole have a really shit life.

SAM sees working and signing on as a form of survival. It's what you do to make ends meet. Articulate, intelligent and presentable, he has never had a job and is not sure he ever will, at least in the nine to five sense of the word. He left school without a Leaving Cert and moved to Dublin.

"I've gone through periods of deep shame and self loathing. You go from being at school and being voted the person most likely to succeed. You're in a small rural environment where you're the king of the castle. Then you come to Dublin where no one gives a rat's arse and you're nobody."

Next month Sam has four to six days' work lined up. He will not be declaring them to the dole office. If he does, his payment will be docked the following week. He probably won't be paid for this work until the following month, so he says he can't afford to be up front about this nixer.

"It's absurd that some people can claim that there are arch criminals on the dole who are screwing the country's taxpayers for everything they've got."

It is Vincent Clohisey's job to find people like Sam. As assistant regional director in the Department of Social Welfare, he is in charge of "control" activity, Department speak for the fraud section.

With 22 staff in Townsend Street, Dublin, he co ordinates a national staff of more than 320 social welfare inspectors. Last year these investigations brought in £100 million in savings, £48.7 million of that related to dole payments and the balance in pensions, sickness and single mothers' allowances.

If, as the CSO figures suggest, 11 per cent of people on the dole have full time jobs, their payments are costing about £100 million a year. He says this week's figures on dole fraud don't tally with what he sees within the Department. Of the 285,000 people on the Live Register last year, about 100,000 were interviewed by social welfare inspectors.

About 30,000 of these people are registered casual workers on non permanent contracts.

Government sources have suggested that the Department may be haemorrhaging up to £300 million annually in payments to fraudsters. He argues that if there was that level of fraud his bosses would be tripping over themselves to plug the leaks.

A social welfare inspector has wide powers, including the power to cross refer college records to the Live Register. They also have the right to enter someone's home to carry out an inspection. The Department also interviews about 9,000 employers annually. Much of the information that triggers an inspection comes from anonymous tip offs, either by phone or letter.

"People see someone driving around in a new car and they report it, but it turns out to be the sister's, mother's or brother's car. Then someone arrives home in a taxi a lot and it turns out their uncle is a taximan and he's giving them a lift home."

THE signs of fraud are easily spotted by social welfare inspectors. Mr Clohisey describes them as streetwise types. "They're the kind of people you wouldn't try to sell a used car to."

When people always sign on early in the morning, alarm bells ring and they may get a visit. Then the man comes in with paint under his nails. It turns out he's been sprucing up the garden fence.

Once Mr Clohisey was involved in a raid on a cleaning firm. Most of its cleaners were working under false names and using false addresses. They were afraid their husbands' extra allowance would be docked.

When the case was investigated the Department found that all the women were earning less than the amount which would lead to their husbands' dole being docked. The scam was a waste of time and a symptom of the paranoia about being investigated by "the social".

His Department will target certain areas and certain professions. The main ones are construction, catering, cleaning and farm work. Last year 117 cases of fraud were referred to the Department from the regions.

Ninety eight of these were referred to the Chief State Solicitor's office and 60 eases were prosecuted in court. Fines were between £50 and £300. Twenty five of those prosecutions were against employers.

The prosecutions are a drop in a very deep and wide ocean if this week's CSO figures represent the true picture. Mr Clohisey expects that between now and Christmas most people on the Live Register will be investigated or interviewed. If the system is as corrupt as it seems, he and fellow officials will never be out of a job.