PEOPLE WHO admit to the fraudulent claiming of social welfare benefits should be given an amnesty, Opposition politicians have proposed. The proposal is aimed at eliminating abuse of the benefits system by allowing those who admit to their fraud to escape a financial penalty.
The call came yesterday as Minister of State for Finance Brian Hayes insisted €500 million will be saved in a clampdown on social welfare fraud next year.
Mr Hayes predicted “serious savings” would come about partly as a result of a dramatic surge in suspected social welfare fraud tip-offs.
His comments came after The Irish Times reported yesterday that anonymous reports to the Department of Social Protection rose to more than 16,000 this year from about 600 six years ago.
“People aren’t putting up with it any more. They may have turned a blind eye in the good times but they are not prepared to see their neighbours scam the system as they did in the past, and that’s a good thing for the country,” Mr Hayes said.
Sinn Féin spokesman on social protection Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Independent Senator Feargal Quinn have urged the Government to implement an amnesty, similar to tax amnesties operated in the past, which they argued would help to eradicate small-scale abuse of the benefits system.
Mr Ó Snodaigh said some people had continued to receive a means-tested benefit to which they were no longer entitled and they were afraid to approach officials in case they were instructed to pay back money they could not afford.
“A lot of what is called fraud is clerical error,” he said.
Mr Ó Snodaigh said an amnesty should not apply to large-scale abuses such as multiple claiming and identity fraud which he said was “blatant fraud” and should be tackled.
He welcomed the rising numbers of people making complaints about others “defrauding the State”.
Mr Quinn suggested an amnesty be considered at a recent Oireachtas committee meeting.
However, Mr Hayes said he would be “very slow to agree” to such an amnesty.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Social Protection said: “I can confirm that no amnesty for social welfare fraud is under consideration at the moment.”
Spokeswoman for the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed Bríd O’Brien said it was important to emphasise that a report about suspected welfare fraud did not always mean that a criminal offence had taken place.
She said that it was possible for people to work on two or three days of the week, depending on the hours involved, and still claim some social welfare benefits.
Fianna Fáil’s social protection spokesman Barry Cowen said he was concerned that Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton had pinned a lot of her department’s expected savings for 2012 on tackling fraud.
