Tag Archives: Welfare Fraud

Fine Gael TD and Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar

This morning.

On Today with Seán O’Rourke.

Further to the Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar’s Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All campaign…

Cllr Gavin Mendel-Gleason, of the Workers’ Party, in Dublin North West, and Paddy Smyth, Dublin City Fine Gael councillor for Rathgar-Rathmines, spoke to Mr O’Rourke about Mr Varadkar’s campaign.

Former inspector with the Department of Social Protection Bernadette Gorman later joined the conversation by phone.

Ms Gorman accused Mr Varadkar of launching the welfare cheat campaign as a means to improve his chances of becoming the next leader of Fine Gael and, by extension, Taoiseach.

She also called it a “hate campaign”.

From the interview:

Sean O’Rourke: “First of all, to you, Paddy Smyth, Fine Gael councillor for Rathgar-Rathmines. Is Leo Varadkar taking, is he taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut here?”

Paddy Smyth: “Not necessarily. The amount of welfare fraud that goes on, estimated by the department, is a sizeable sum. Hundreds of millions of euros, of taxpayers’ money, that is claimed fraudulently. Now, the most interesting thing, I think, about this campaign is the reaction from certain parties. The fact that certain parties can find a politically profitable to condone, if not rightly encourage, social welfare fraud, I think is a very worrying development for our society. As I said, hundreds of millions of euros.”

O’Rourke: “Hold on now, where is this hundreds of millions coming from now?”

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Another cunning stunt.

Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar flagged the measure in an interview with The Sunday Business Post last January.

This will end well.

Leo Varadkar sets out plans for future (Hugh O’Connell, The Sunday Business Post, January 2017)

Previously: Populist Chancer Cheats Us All

Pic: Hugh O’Connell

A ledger, discovered in Co Waterford, has come to light which contains the “Relief List” of the local destitute in 1847. The poignant document contains the names, addresses, ages and other personal details of people applying for daily food rations during the Famine. Claimants were categorised as being either “Helpless Poor” or “Able-Bodied Poor”.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton could have written the instructions designed “to deter dishonest persons who are in employment or earning a livelihood from registering themselves as destitute and from applying for relief”.

The Victorian pen pushers   insisted that starving claimants – who were dying in droves – “must apply in person daily” or else “send a medical certificate of illness”.

 

 

Welfare Claimants: Deserving And Undeserving Poor (Michael Parsons, Irish Times – scroll down)

This morning

This evening.

When it’s ‘welfare control measures’, silly.

Fiaro Myles writes:

And all it took was pointing out that, er, welfare fraud prevention did not in fact lead to €645m in savings last year.

Best guess it was more like €26m (see herehere, here and ah sher, since it was the source for the original article, here). Fair play to the IT  for correcting it, but I wonder why they got it wrong in the first place?

 

Earlier: Celebrating The New Informer Culture

Minister Joan Burton announcing the results of an upsurge in people grassing on alleged dole cheats.

Despite this:

Fraud and error rates tend to range from 1 per cent in cases involving the State contributory pension to 3.1 per cent with the Jobseeker’s Allowance.

 

Welfare Fraud Prevention Results In Savings Of €645m (Irish Times)

Earlier: “A Cultural Shift”

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)