Only the tip of the iceberg. Assuming a 5% level of fraud then the annual level of fraud is in the region €1b. Undoubtedly, the abuse of lone parent, childrens allowance, disability benefit,the black economy etc there is easily €2b per annum to save. Time we as a people stopped condoning welfare fraud. It is this very ambivalence to welfare fraud that had you and me having to pay more taxes, charges etc.

As TV3 showed on Monday night fraud is still rife in this system. I also blame lazy civil servants for not doing their job. I am a public sector worker, working in the area of Special Needs Education, and if I or my colleagues did not comply to the terms of our contracts we would be disciplined or/and have our contracts terminated. I know of someone who has cheated the system for 5 years of €24,000. So easy to do when some lazy civil servant never followed up on these payments. Something that was meant to be a once off payment to help this person get back in their feet is still happening 5 years later!!! No wonder our poor country is on it’s knees!

Wouldn’t be Ms. Burtons biggest fan but this is great. I’m amazed at some of the ‘too little, too late’ and the usual bankers comments. it’s never too late to save a half billion on money going to people that don’t deserve it.

“69% of overpayments in 2009 and 2010 were due to error”
See ‘Tackling Welfare Fraud’ published by the Oireachtas Library & Research Service on October 13, 2011. It concluded that only 21.1% of over-payments in the social welfare system were due to fraud.
But there is no percentage in training staff or improving systems. Shouting about fraud guarantees the Minister lots of publicity and deflects attention from the real problems.

I know someone on the dole for 10 years, lives at home, etc. and has thousands saved up in the bank. Has no problem taking all of this welfare money and has no intention of working again. Why aren’t these people having their dole cut in half?

Stable door – Horse bolted. Too little to late, its being going on for years but because the country was flush nobody bothered to do anything about it. We need proactive leaders not reactive.!!!

Will they apply the same aptitude to arresting and charging the bankers who in essence should be charged with treason. Not one banker worldwide is serving time for this mess that the ordinary citizen is paying for!

Holy s##t, this is just another way of dividing society. If they turn everyone against each other, then it is a lot easier for them to do whatever they like with little or no fight. I think that they should deal with fraudulent claims, but if people think that things are gonna be any better after they report their neighbour. They are fooling themselves. As somebody commented already. These savings are tiny in comparison to what everybody is paying back for the lack of regulation and abundance of backhanders which were rife with the previous government. PEOPLE NEED TO STAND TOGETHER

A sad state of affaires, a State reduced to eating its own off spring, the value of the money saved a weeks interest to greedy bankers. I am the first person to say hunt down and bring to justice anyone guilty of fraud but what is making me angry is that a whole section of society seems to be exempt of prosecution. A few desperate scamsters are caught cheating the State and those who have cheated us all of so much for so long will continue to go unpunished. Animal farm: the pigs really do rule!

The Irish begrudger is alive and well. 645 million to little to late. I’m not her biggest fan but that’s a hell of a saving over a couple of years. Oh yeah I thought I saw a banker stealing a child’s ball the other day. And just to try and get some fact to earlier comments. All you have to do is use google to see plenty have been charged in Iceland and its going the same way here.

Go on the fraud section!!! ;-D

Also I agree lock up them banker f@@ks!!

Peter 66.you want to report someone who is working and collecting a Pension..All the retired politicians are working in new jobs,and collecting huge pensions.Bertie himself.has two full time jobs,and take 3,000 a week from us each week.So before you report your friend for doing this,have a look around first

No what’s disgusting is that fact that a person who has worked all there life in this country and payed their tax get the same social welfare allowance that a person who just entered the country last week gets.

Please amend your inaccurate and widely misleading headline. The €645m figure is what the department might ‘possibly’ save if it did not carry out any inspections or assessments of claims. It is not a ‘saving. It is not real money. It is a figure calculated by the department. It does not refer to money spent or obtained. The ‘actual’ fraud last year was €26 million. This is the official figure from the Department. The total social welfare expenditure was around €20 billion. Thus, fraud accounts for 0.01% of total social welfare spending. But don’t let the facts get in the way of story eh?

If every mistake and error was captured. If every fraudulent claim was rejected. If no department official ever made a mistake, if no applicant ever lied , the eventual savings, over a period of time would be around €640million.

Compare this to the €7.4 billion in revenue the State loses every year as result of its generous tax breaks which are three times the EU average http://communityplatform.ie/uploads/campaign_document_final.pdf

645 million,and something like 3 or four hundred million last year.By these figures there should be nobody left on the dole.Would be truly great,if indeed they have saved that amount..I want to know what is the 645 million figure based on,is it the lifetime of a person on the dole,or a yearly basis.If they really have saved this amount,I congradulate them for it,because it shows they have done a great job.It will be great now that they have such experience to go after the real money trail.Start with the ones fiddling their expenses,and pensions.Next go after the devolopers who are all back in work,and claiming 200,000 from us each year.Now they have caught these people fiddling on the dole,go after the real scroungers.you proved to us all you have the experience.so do it.!!!Why do I suspect this is another smokescreen to whats coming.The days ahead will tell

I would be punished more for stealing a mars bar than those bankers will get for their monumental crimes.
Those bustards will never be poor.
When will the government realise how much we would forgive them if they hung these bankers out to dry?

I can’t stand welfare fraud and do think that it should be stamped out. However, to prioritise investigating welfare abuses by desperate people over punishing those who abused their positions in banks for years sends the complete wrong message.

“The €645 million figure reflects the Department’s expectations as to how much it would have spent on benefits, over time,”
Over what period of time, not a year. This sounds a bit sensationalist to me. That could be €645million over 10 years. And the fack that these are low hanging fruit like double claiments, non residents, non single parent families. Imagine how indemic fraud actually is in our social welfare system. Disgusting.

Has anyone noticed that the number of people who are {jobless and receiving social welfare right now}, is roughly the same as the number of economic migrants who came to this country since 2007, when the new EU countries joined the Schengen Area?
Romania and Bulgaria will be joining the Schengen area in 2014, and I’m looking forward to seeing what affect that will have here.

It all has to start at the top! Why is it that everybody else had to take a pay cut and budget every month and suffer ? Why aren’t Governments, Ministers TDs etc…not Subjected to the same ? What control measures are in place there? None!

What about the massive thieving that Burton and crew partake in daily!

Appeasement of the Petit bourgeois. Butter them up for the next tax increase by showing ZERO TOLERANCE on dole fraud, the story being fed to the countries media this week, eliciting exactly the response expected from most of you above.

Great, I snitched my neighbour in, delighted for him. 17,000 tip-offs to the State. Pure parochial bitterness. What next? Say even a billion saved? That’s liquid money that was being spent in your towns, more than can be said for the bills incurred from paying off rogue banking institutions. Do not underestimate how much social welfare payments contribute to what’s left of the services economy in all those recession blasted towns through the country. Where’s that possible billion going now? Is Mr tittle tattle going to get a reward for daubing in his neighbour?

The people who snitched will be no better off materially or in the future. They might be distracted for a while, a short smug afterglow in seeing a woman’s single mother benefit (albeit claimed fraudulently) cut and that’s it. The money has gone straight into the great fire, the blaze of the this country’s mismanaged coffers.

Any claim this government makes has to be taken with a grain or two of salt. I would say the money saved here is more to do with them streamlining their ridiculous processes and double payments rather than catching dole cheats. No doubt Ms Bruton will pander to the fear of the “welfare vulture” for political gain. And why not, people are stupid enough to buy into this governments propaganda.

NO MORE PAYING OUT TO PEOPLE WEARING SNICKERS/TOOL BELTS/COVERED IN PAINT

…..€645m saved through social welfare ‘control measures’

Yes I agree Emsy Wemsy but there is fraud at the top aswell and the sums are far higher so they would save more it they started there

The propaganda from these people is unbelievable. These people must think that everybody has no memory. This must be the fourth or fifth time in the last eight years or so that these people keep saying that they saved around 650 Million. It becomes very suspicious when they keep saying almost the same figure.

These people are more like Nazis and have convinced themselves that they are right at all times and it all comes back to using opinions to judge, which is ignoring peoples rights and will them leave people to starve. Raising Civil Servants to levels of authority to be judges has turned them into criminals.

The people on social welfare need to protect themselves and force the department to give them a full list of their rights. If you have any problems you must go to the social welfare appeals office. If the Social Welfare Appeals Office does not work you must go to the courts to protect your rights. Do not let them judge you while financing the pretentious.

I heard a rumour that there is a financial reward for reporting welfare fraud – is this true?

Every time I hear this woman speak I feel as if am being punished. Has no one ever told her that she sounds absolutely ridiculous? Where did she get that voice from, a lucky packet?

nope..

Labour / fine gale= lying hypocrisy arrogance. And its only the first year. Only another 4 to go… By then we should be all cheats or if not alco’s.

Glad to see so many can see so little.

Hi I want to correct the my wording” people who are frauds on the social welfare” being dishonest and cheating the system” should have their payments docked and be made pay back what they have scrounge out of tax payers money” the likes of frauds are ruining it for real genuine people” so I don’t have any sympathy for cheats and scroungers” Rita Cahill

Again, they hit on venerable People, what’s the next thing that this Government can do” oh I know starve the families like single parents and then hit on Disability people, this is what FG / LB party have always done in the past and into the present, they are not for the poor people, they have always being for the wealth, if you are not wealthy to them” it’s a bye bye, they want to fill their pockets with your money” that’s what this Government do Best and FF I would never trust them ever again” independent and Left Alliance would be my better choice at least they will protect the Vulnerable, There is a protest on sat outside the Dial at 2pm, I support and go to them all, so now is your best time to get out and voice yourself and don’t let this government get away with what they are trying to do in a peaceful Protest” one voice speaks for us all together as one” fist the cutback on Education Community and SNA for the Disability” and cuts on Health Service Community projects Rita Cahill

Looking at her picture above,she should take some of the money and get something done with her face.She looks like god made her for spite,I doubt the tide would even take her out.She probably looks in the mirror each day,hates what she sees,and then inflicts her hate on all of us..Anyway,god help her too.