The Department of Social and Family Affairs has admitted it gave out almost €30 million in social welfare payments by mistake last year. Most of the money went to people making fraudulent benefit claims.
Just under 40,000 social welfare recipients were overpaid by the Department last year. The majority of these - 29,641 - received unemployment benefit.
While some of the overpayments were due to problems with updating people's files, or "human error", most of the money was falsely claimed by dole "spongers", said a Department spokeswoman.
"The vast majority of overpayments are, unfortunately, due to fraud. Occasionally there are slight errors in the computer system, or mistakes made by people updating files, but these are rare enough," she said.
The Department paid more than €11 million too much in dole payments, €10 million in pensions and just over €3 million in lone-parent allowances. The rest went on child benefit, family income support and pre-retirement allowance. A sum of €533,697 was given in miscel- laneous payments.
Officials are in the process of retrieving the money, the spokeswoman said. The Department's annual report shows that it received €15 million in repayments in 2002. However, not all of this came from the people overpaid last year.
"Sometimes people can't afford to repay very much at one time, so we have to let them pay small amounts over a period of years," the spokeswoman said.
"It's often the case that people delayed in coming in to tell us about a change in circumstances, but didn't intend to leave it go as long as they did. When people are on a social welfare benefit, you have to leave them with a certain standard of living, so it is a slow process."
However, when there has been a deliberate fraud and people refuse to pay up, the Department takes legal action. Last June it set up the Central Overpayments and Debt Management Unit to deal with the problem.
Last year it investigated 341,000 cases of suspected fraud, and details were forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor's office in 245 cases, where repayment was refused.
Some 167 cases were finalised in court. Five claimants were served with prison sentences, 28 received suspended sentences, 78 were fined, 32 received the Probation Act and the rest had their cases struck out or dismissed or were bound to the peace. A further 539 cases are being processed through the courts.
The Department estimates it saved €282.5 million in stopping payments to fraudsters last year, with €118.5 million of that coming from false dole payments.
For the second quarter of this year, it said, it has realised anti-fraud savings of €78.5 million. Total savings were up by more than €900,000 on the previous quarter, with €156 million realised during the first six months.
