De Rossa warns on moves to punish the poor

THE Minister for Social Welfare has advised people to be on their guard against those "who pretend poverty can be tackled by punishing the poor". The existence of welfare fraud, Mr De Rossa said, must not be used as an excuse to deny the existence of poverty.

Many people may have been disconcerted, to say the least, by the extensive coverage of the results of the Government initiated CSO survey", which, he acknowledged, made for sobering reading. But, he said, it was only one survey which would need corroboration over time by other such surveys.

Speaking yesterday at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Parents Alone Resource Centre in Coolock, Dublin, he said: "We have to take the incidence of abuse it indicates seriously and to act in a measured way".

The Government's decision to step up anti fraud activity "in no way means a lessening of my commitment or that of my Department to tackling poverty issues and, in particular, to the national anti poverty strategy."

The primary target of the Government's anti fraud activities, he said, was not unemployed people who could not get work, but people who were working and claiming fraudulently, and the employers who colluded with them.

It was important, he felt, "that we guard against all social welfare recipients becoming the target of opportunist and manipulative politicians and sections of the media with a political agenda who pretend poverty can be tackled by punishing the poor."

The Workers' Party has accused the Government and others of using the CSO survey figures to demonise all social welfare recipients. The party's social welfare spokesman, Alderman Martin O'Regan of Waterford, said the figures "had no basis in hard fact" and were "extrapolated from a small sample of less than I per cent of the 300,000 people on the live register of unemployed." He said hem had no doubt social welfare fraud, existed, and condemned it, but it paled into insignificance when compared to tax fraud by the wealthy, which he costed at £3 billion a year, referring to Revenue figures.

"No tax fraudster has ever been jailed since this State came into, being, yet dozens of welfare recipients are jailed every year for comparatively small amounts of fraudulently obtained money." There was, he claimed, a world of difference between "those who steal from need and those whoa steal from greed."

Ms Noreen Byrne, chairwoman of the National Women's Council of Ireland, said strong measures were needed to identify systematic fraud but she wondered whether the system was contributing to the problem. She said if it was such that people were having a major struggle to survive "and if, within it, the system has built in disincentives, and creates a maze which makes moving from welfare to anything less than full time paid work a very risky business, then we have a system which is contributing to the problem."

Mr Simon Nugent, president of the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), said criticism of the social welfare system and a crackdown on fraud should not be seen as alternatives to job creation.

He was launching NYCI proposals for a successor to the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.

The Combat Poverty Agency welcomed the CSO study but warned against too many interpretations being drawn from the findings. The majority of social welfare recipients were genuine and a balanced response was needed to tackle fraud.

The agency also said the findings highlighted issues about values in Irish society which supported a climate of tolerance for those who took advantage of the system.