THERE HAS been a five-fold increase in the number of reports being made by people who allege social welfare fraud by neighbours and acquaintances in the past year.
Some 5,600 tip-offs from members of the public were given to the Department of Social and Family Affairs’ central control section in the first 10 months of last year. This compares with 1,044 for the whole of 2008.
In the first six months of last year, 2,581 reports were received, compared with just 362 in the same period in 2008.
A spokeswoman for the department said every report from a member of the public, whether anonymous or not, was investigated, to assess if action was necessary.
The increase in the number of people reporting suspected fraud by neighbours and acquaintances has been dramatic in the past three years. In 2007, just 604 complaints were made.
The department spokeswoman said the increase had been linked with the difficult economic times.
She said people may previously have suspected that certain people were involved in social welfare fraud but may have chosen to turn a blind eye.
Now that the economy was in recession, they were not prepared to turn a blind eye to the misuse of public funds, she said.
This view was echoed by Minister for Social Affairs Mary Hanafin last year, when she highlighted what she described as an “astonishing” rise in the number of reports in the first two months of that year.
The department’s spokeswoman said final figures were not available for the whole of 2009 yet, but provisional figures suggested that most reports involved claims that people were working while claiming jobseekers’ payments, and that single parents were claiming the one-family payment while living with a partner. Under the conditions of that scheme, the parent in receipt of the payment must not be cohabiting.
The spokeswoman said that in the case of unemployment payments, certain categories of workers may qualify for jobseekers’ payments while partially employed.
Some 620 staff in the Department of Social and Family Affairs are involved in the detection of fraud and the abuse of the welfare system. The department has estimated that savings of more than €500 million were made last year by clamping down on fraud and abuse.
The Central Control Section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs accepts reports of possible fraud by e-mail (central.control@welfare.ie), or by telephone or in writing. Reports can be made anonymously.
