A major cross-Border investigation between Irish and British authorities has uncovered widespread social welfare fraud by asylum seekers and other foreign nationals may have cost the State tens of millions of euro, The Irish Times has learned. Conor Lally reports.
Sources close to the investigation, called Operation Gull, said they have been "staggered" by the level and nature of abuses being detected.
Co-ordinated swoops on ports and airports in the Republic and Northern Ireland have revealed significant numbers of foreign nationals taking advantage of the common travel area between the Republic and the UK in a bid to defraud the Irish Exchequer.
When interviewed while entering the State from the UK, many were found to have already registered for social welfare benefits of up to €3,000 per month in the Republic.
They had left the country but had continued to be paid benefits into bank accounts. They were able to access their welfare payments from abroad via ATM machines. The authorities were unaware the fraudsters had left the State and so the payments were never stopped.
Many of those involved had attempted to travel back to Ireland via the more relaxed immigration controls in the common travel area after long periods abroad. Some offenders were found to be registered for benefits in the UK and other EU states under assumed identities. One Nigerian couple registered for benefits here were found to be running a four-star hotel in Lagos, where they were spending long periods.
In another case a foreign national woman living in Co Meath was claiming rent allowance and child-related benefits totalling almost €3,000 per month combined despite her husband working as a fully-qualified doctor in a Belfast hospital.
In recent months gardaí have uncovered cases, primarily involving Chinese nationals, where a child registered for child benefits in the Republic has been sent back to the care of relatives in China only for the welfare payments to continue to be paid here.
Operation Gull has been stepped up in recent months with the secondment to the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) of extra officials from UK immigration authorities and the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
It is only the second time in the history of the State that welfare officials have been seconded to a Garda unit. The first case involved the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Confirmed savings so far have reached almost €7 million under Operation Gull. However, this is based on the presumption that the average social welfare payment is for 32 weeks, as it is for Irish nationals. Many foreign national fraudsters detected had been claiming allowances usually paid for much longer than this. It is estimated the real savings run into tens of millions. Almost 1,200 cases have been detected to date.
The Garda portion of the operation has been run in the Republic by GNIB under Chief Supt Derek Byrne and Det Sgt John Foudy.
Teams of gardaí, UK immigration officials and social welfare officials have staged around 50 operations since Operation Gull began last year. Some operations at ports and airports have involved team members staying in place for up to four days and painstakingly checking the paperwork of foreign nationals and interviewing them.