Road checkpoints to tackle fraud `inroad into liberty'

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, along with Opposition groups, has criticised a part of the new Social Welfare Bill which would allow Department inspectors to mount vehicle checkpoints.

The powers, aimed at those engaging in welfare fraud, were described last night as "another inroad into people's liberty to come and go in the course of legitimate activity" by the council's co-chair, Ms Siobhan Ni Chulachain.

The Bill would allow a Department inspector, when accompanied by a uniformed garda, to stop a vehicle suspected of "being used in the course of employment or self-employment" and question the occupants. Ms Ni Chulachain said it appeared to be extending "Garda-type powers to other State servants".

Socialist Party TD Mr Joe Higgins called the proposals "oppressive" and said that, if passed, they could be used in a witch hunt against the unemployed.

"Will we have these so-called `multi-agency vehicle checkpoints' at the exits and entrances to large working-class housing estates? Trawling through every van, pickup truck and mud-spattered car in search of alleged moonlighters?" He said he did not condone anybody "ripping off the taxpayer" but said none of the large-scale frauds recently exposed involved the unemployed. "Had there been `multi-agency checkpoints' at the entrances to the executive suites of the big banks or at the entrance to Government ministers' homes in the last 15 years, it would have been much more appropriate than this measure."

The Workers' Party said the Government seemed to be working on the assumption that all welfare recipients were "cheats".

However, the Labour Party welcomed a provision extending powers to social welfare inspectors allowing them to enter premises and examine employers' records. It said there were far too few inspectors to do the work.

Meanwhile, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for a crackdown on "accountants, financial advisers, lawyers and other facilitators of financial fraud". Mr Peter Cassells said financial abuses of recent years "could not have taken place without the active collaboration of several accountants and financial and legal advisers".