Social welfare officials are investigating a case of alleged welfare fraud involving EU nationals accused of flying into the Republic on a monthly basis to claim welfare benefits and then returning home.
An investigation has been opened in Co Waterford into a group of Polish nationals who have been in receipt of unemployment benefit after being made redundant earlier this year.
They had been working in the Dungarvan area.
Officials said the group is understood to have been flying to and from Ireland on a monthly basis to collect unemployment benefit and then returning to their homes in the south of Poland.
The investigation is ongoing, however, and no prosecutions have been brought against any individual.
Under social welfare rules, applicants for unemployment benefit must be "habitually resident" in the State.
The vast majority of welfare fraud involves Irish nationals in areas such as unemployment benefit, one-parent family payments and illness payments.
A Department of Social and Family Affairs spokesperson declined to comment on any ongoing investigation except to say that overall there were savings of about €375 million last year through a series of anti-fraud measures.
The department has more than 600 staff at local, regional and national level engaged on a full-time or part-time basis on work related to the control of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system.
It said prosecutions were taken in 364 cases in 2006 and 247 prosecutions had been taken in 2007 to the end of October. The majority of these prosecutions involved Irish nationals.
Welfare restrictions introduced shortly before the accession of new EU member states in 2004 were aimed at preventing "welfare tourism" by ensuring that welfare claimants were resident in the State for two years before being able to claim benefits.
However, many EU nationals now satisfy this restriction, known as the habitual residency condition, and are legally entitled to apply for benefits as long as they are typically resident in the State.
Waterford Fine Gael TD John Deasy expressed concern that cheap flights and difficulties in monitoring the movement of welfare claimants meant the system was in danger of abuse.
However, he emphasised that the vast majority of EU nationals were making a valuable contribution to society and the economy.
"We need to make sure the system is able to deal with any overseas fraud now, before we find out that it has become a much bigger problem in a few years' time," said Mr Deasy, who is planning to raise the issue in the Dáil.
