THE COALITION is facing difficult decisions on the budget but any measures adopted will have to be in a context of fairness, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said.
Stressing that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, she said if any sacrifices were asked of people on welfare then the position of top earners in politics and the Civil Service should also be examined.
There were high levels of concern among Irish citizens about the “very significant salaries and very significant closure arrangements” provided to ministers in the previous government and top level civil servants, she said.
“Perhaps in the context of the budget there will be an opportunity for Michael Noonan to have a look at some of that. I think that will probably be appropriate,” Ms Burton said.
Her remarks came at the introduction of a welfare fraud initiative which aims to achieve savings of €625 million next year.
A detailed fraud control plan placed greater emphasis on inter-agency co-operation at State-wide and local level, the Minister said.
“Social welfare fraud is often perceived as a victimless crime. But I am conscious that it undermines public confidence in the entire system as well as being unfair to other recipients of social welfare payments and taxpayers and legitimate businesses,” Ms Burton said.
Other aspects of the initiative include: greater presence of social welfare inspectors on the ground; targeting sectors where fraud is more likely to occur; examining new ways to recover overpayments; examining increased penalties for those operating in the hidden economy; greater liaison with employers on labour market trends; enhancing technical and audit capacity of the department including the distribution of the new Public Services Card.
The department will focus on employers as well as individuals. “The provisional target for the number of employer inspections in 2012 and 2013 is in the region of 2,500 to 3,500 each year,” Ms Burton said.
The Minister also said there would be a consultation seminar with the relevant stakeholders on this fraud initiative later this year.
“The Department of Social Protection processes in excess of two million applications each year and it makes payments to over 1.4 million people every week. I want to emphasise that the vast majority of people are receiving the entitlement due to them,” she said.
Asked if the State pension would be reduced, the Minister replied: “I am not in a position today to talk about what will be in the budget. We have undergone a very comprehensive expenditure review, carried out by the officials in this department.
“I think at this point we have probably submitted about three or four hundred pages of very detailed documentation to our colleagues in the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
“Budgets are made in an overall political context by the Cabinet and there has to be fairness. But no decision has been reached in relation to any specifics in the budget.”
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said the campaign launched by Ms Burton, relating to social welfare fraud, was important.
“We need to ensure that every euro we spend on social welfare is going to people who need that support,” he said.
