THE Government is examining how to respond to a survey showing, widespread fraud among those on the unemployment live register.
Last night Ministers were promising to step up anti-evasion measures, but the scale of the fraud indicates a widespread problem across the social welfare system.
The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, said last night that the survey showed that 44 per cent of those claiming unemployment payments were either at work full-time or were not at the addresses given to the Department of Social Welfare.
Mr Bruton and the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, agreed last night that the figures indicated widespread fraud in the system.
Mr De Rossa said he planned to bring new measures to Cabinet next week to combat the problem. He said that £100 million or "perhaps more" could be accounted for by fraud.
However, the survey figures suggest - and Government sources confirmed last night - that fraud could amount to as much as £350 million. Full details are to be published shortly by the Central Statistics Office.
Among the measures the Government will consider are more systematic controls, more targeted field investigations and closer working relationships between Government Departments and State agencies, according to a statement from Mr Bruton.
Mr De Rossa said it was important to point out that most claimants were genuine. "I do not want to see innocent people, be they recipients or employers, maligned or hurt simply because of the deviousness of others," he said.
The survey was undertaken by the CSO, which compared 2,600 cases on the live register with the results of the labour force survey. The survey, conducted once a year, involves questioning of a sample of households.
Because the results of the survey are confidential, it is understood that the Department of Social Welfare will not be able to pursue those identified by it as fraudsters.
The CSO found that 16 per cent of live register claimants covered in the survey were working full-time and not entitled to social welfare payments.
In 14 per cent of cases the person claiming the payment could not be traced from the address given, while in a further 14 per cent of cases relatives lived at the address, but not the person claiming the payment.
Government sources said last night that fraud was clearly involved in cases where the claimant was working full-time. In a significant proportion of the cases where the claimant was not at the stated address, some element of fraud is also likely to be involved, they believe.
Taken together, this could indicate that up to one-third of the £1,061 annual billion budget for unemployment payments - or more than £350 million - could be being fraudulently claimed.
Last night Mr Michael McDowell, the Progressive Democrats finance spokesman, said there had been a reluctance, "partly based on political correctness", to consider "that a welfare system which is for many more attractive than work is likely to be the subject of significant abuse".
Mr De Rossa has 4,500 civil servants, he said. "Surely the Department has enough resources to administer the system properly and to ensure that taxpayers funds are not being wasted."
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed criticised the "leaking of incomplete and unsubstantiated estimates of welfare fraud" saying it "slurred the unemployed."
