welfare fraudster treated better than hardworking people who cant pay tax bill
- Thread starter sidzer
- Start date
Maybe 'fraudulent' is a very loose term here though.
E.g. may apply to people who avoid work by messing up interviews etc?
Maybe 'fraudulent' is a very loose term here though.
E.g. may apply to people who avoid work by messing up interviews etc?
No, they werent talking about work shy people who shouldnt be on the dole. The figure refers to straight forward fraud whereby someone claims and works under a different name/PPS number or submits false information in order to get a benefit they are not entitled to.
Good friend of mine who's an inspector in DSFA, told me in conversation last week that the head of his Dept held a meeting about this issue of fraud with senior civil servants in government buildings.
They didn't even have the courtesy to take notes at the meeting (never mind action the suggestions made)..
SW fraud is rampant at the moment and approx 50% of all investigations (by 4 inspectors) over the past months have been proven to be.
Ms Hanafin needs to action this and needs to be seen to action it!
They didn't even have the courtesy to take notes at the meeting (never mind action the suggestions made)..
SW fraud is rampant at the moment and approx 50% of all investigations (by 4 inspectors) over the past months have been proven to be.
Ms Hanafin needs to action this and needs to be seen to action it!
Is there a phone line something like crimestoppers in action for Dole/Benefit cheats? I know this could lead to a lot of malicious reports of abuse made against compliant claimers but if your compliant you don't mind being investigated. Surely there should be somewhere for the public to report people they know who are fraudulently cliaming benifits. The public need to take some of the blame for this culture as often they turn a blind eye to this sort of thing especially when they can gain something from it, I'm thinking of Window Cleaners, Domestic Cleaners, Child Minders etc these people are often making multiples of tax compliant citizens.
Here are the details for reporting possible/suspected fraud to DSFA.
Reporting Possible Fraud in Relation to the Department's Schemes
The Central Control Section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs accepts reports of possible fraud offered by members of the public in relation to the Department’s schemes.
Reports are accepted by email, phone or in writing. All reports are dealt with in confidence. A member of the public may give details anonymously.
Contact Details:
By email: central.control@welfare.ie
By phone:1890 927 999 select option 4 to report suspected Social Welfare fraud, or (01) 704 3000 and ask for Central Control Section, or (071) 9672648
By Post: Central Control Division, Shannon Lodge, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.
Reporting Possible Fraud in Relation to the Department's Schemes
The Central Control Section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs accepts reports of possible fraud offered by members of the public in relation to the Department’s schemes.
Reports are accepted by email, phone or in writing. All reports are dealt with in confidence. A member of the public may give details anonymously.
Contact Details:
By email: central.control@welfare.ie
By phone:1890 927 999 select option 4 to report suspected Social Welfare fraud, or (01) 704 3000 and ask for Central Control Section, or (071) 9672648
By Post: Central Control Division, Shannon Lodge, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.
Am +1 on this too...
Surely, when one accepts SW, for each benefit, they should have to sign a form etc.. saying that if they are caught defrauding SW, all monies will have to be paid back, plus 10% interest per year, plus a 50% fine or something like that. If you can't pay then it should be dedecuted out of future welfare payments if you make it, or put as a tax liability against you.
Some really high stakes need to be put in place, and if you want to roll the dice, you do so at your pearl.
Leaving these systems open to fraud, promotes fraud, as there are little to no consequences.
Surely, when one accepts SW, for each benefit, they should have to sign a form etc.. saying that if they are caught defrauding SW, all monies will have to be paid back, plus 10% interest per year, plus a 50% fine or something like that. If you can't pay then it should be dedecuted out of future welfare payments if you make it, or put as a tax liability against you.
Some really high stakes need to be put in place, and if you want to roll the dice, you do so at your pearl.
Leaving these systems open to fraud, promotes fraud, as there are little to no consequences.
I watched the primetime program and was absolutely astonished and angered at the same time.
I work as a computer programmer. I have spent 12 years working in very large orgranizations not to dissimlar to the PS. When I heard of the scenario where on one hand somebody could claim jobseekers benefit and on the other hand be in employment making PRSI contributions I was absolutely astonished.
Granted they are obvoiusly 2 separate IT systems, however with a common idenitifier like a PPS, the idenitification of people who are interacting with both systems at the same time is a trivial one.
Integrating both systems would prove to be expensive but generating reports to return this information could easily be done manually by programmers, database folks on an ad-hoc basic(e.g. every week) very, very easily.
How come this it not being done? This is absolutely crazy. If you where a final year student in a Computer Sciene degree program and proposed this work, i.e. writing a computer program/script to build these reports as a final year project there is a good chance it would be refused on the grounds that it was not challenging enough.
If this was a private company, where the payment of fraudulent claims meant a reduction in profit do you think this would happen? Of course not, it only happens in the PS where the taxpayers pay the price.
I have listened to Union leaders over the last couple of months stating that benchmarking over the last 20 years had introduced great efficiencies in to the PS and hence it should be continued as a valuable instrument for social partnership. What a joke!
Hire a decent IT programmer for 1-2 months give him this problem and he will fix it and save you a fortune.
I work as a computer programmer. I have spent 12 years working in very large orgranizations not to dissimlar to the PS. When I heard of the scenario where on one hand somebody could claim jobseekers benefit and on the other hand be in employment making PRSI contributions I was absolutely astonished.
Granted they are obvoiusly 2 separate IT systems, however with a common idenitifier like a PPS, the idenitification of people who are interacting with both systems at the same time is a trivial one.
Integrating both systems would prove to be expensive but generating reports to return this information could easily be done manually by programmers, database folks on an ad-hoc basic(e.g. every week) very, very easily.
How come this it not being done? This is absolutely crazy. If you where a final year student in a Computer Sciene degree program and proposed this work, i.e. writing a computer program/script to build these reports as a final year project there is a good chance it would be refused on the grounds that it was not challenging enough.
If this was a private company, where the payment of fraudulent claims meant a reduction in profit do you think this would happen? Of course not, it only happens in the PS where the taxpayers pay the price.
I have listened to Union leaders over the last couple of months stating that benchmarking over the last 20 years had introduced great efficiencies in to the PS and hence it should be continued as a valuable instrument for social partnership. What a joke!
Hire a decent IT programmer for 1-2 months give him this problem and he will fix it and save you a fortune.
...as long as they don't hire a guy who's also claiming.
On a serious note, I don't see a data protection issue as mentioned. The revenue have a right to details of all income. This income information is available within a government department and not an external third party.
That 2 bn figure is complete nonsense. 10% in some limited high risk areas, Prime Time journalists projected this up to the whole country. Madness! And of course everyone parrots the figure as fact.
But the main fact is, as marshmallow pointed out above, the "contrast between the treatment of people in the two programmes was frustratingly stark." It teaches us much about the attitude required to make sure the authorities don't want to darken your door. Perhaps if we all adopted this attitude...
I think prime time mixed up some of their figures. The general benchmark relates to "overpayment" within social welfare, of which fraud is a part, but also includes other issues. They seem to use the general costs and levels as completely indicative of fraud (which i still a high number).
There's has also been some efforts to bring down the number, but as usual there were no new resources given to control this. Even so, those in the department have managed to bring it down (proportionally) through some very simple and basic measures. They found great success with sending out a letter that hinted that a person was to be audited and they shoudl provide supporting information. They found that in a lot of cases when those letters went out, people "signed off" benefits.
The problem was that even though this was effective, they didn't have the resources to actually follow up on the threat. And while the threat was enough for some people, clearly there are others who it would have no impact on.
I personally don't know what the story is. I mean, I hear and have seen reports of how for some it is difficult to claim benefits for something they appear to legitimately have a right to and yet others seem to be able to walk in and claim for everything. Is there a kind of postcode lottery at play where you're under scrutiny if from a certain address but cleared through if from another?
There's has also been some efforts to bring down the number, but as usual there were no new resources given to control this. Even so, those in the department have managed to bring it down (proportionally) through some very simple and basic measures. They found great success with sending out a letter that hinted that a person was to be audited and they shoudl provide supporting information. They found that in a lot of cases when those letters went out, people "signed off" benefits.
The problem was that even though this was effective, they didn't have the resources to actually follow up on the threat. And while the threat was enough for some people, clearly there are others who it would have no impact on.
I personally don't know what the story is. I mean, I hear and have seen reports of how for some it is difficult to claim benefits for something they appear to legitimately have a right to and yet others seem to be able to walk in and claim for everything. Is there a kind of postcode lottery at play where you're under scrutiny if from a certain address but cleared through if from another?
I would disagree with this. There is a wide spread cash economy which is undermining the whole country. Whatever about the multipe claims in different juristictions by a small minority of headliners there is a huge problem with undeclared cash work which is very often perpetrated by people on the dole.
This knocks on to legitimate business people struggling to do things right for themselves, their employees and by collecting taxes for their country. Seeing the "Sherriff and I" program backed up by the welfare cheats the following night makes a mockery of tax payers.
There was an article in this weeks Carlow Nationalist about 10 individuals who were convicted in court of SW fraud. They were named and their addresses were on there also. Most of them got a suspended jail sentance provided they do 160 hours of community service