Social welfare fraud and abuse detection saved the State £214 million last year, new figures show.
The savings secured by more than 600 investigators from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs were up £22 million on the previous year.
Nine people were jailed for social welfare fraud or abuse last year, with sentences ranging from 14 days to five months. A further 23 received suspended sentences and 120 were fined between £10 and £2,000. Six others were ordered to do community service.
Savings in unemployment payments accounted for £107 million, half of the total amount saved. The second largest saving, of £37.9 million, was made in payments to one-parent families, with illness benefits accounting for £35.7 million.
Social welfare benefits payments totalled about £5.3 billion last year, with some £578 million going in unemployment payments.
Some 269 cases were forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor's Office for action. Another 213 cases were finalised in court and there are 510 cases awaiting finalisation.
Some 9,000 employers had PRSI compliance inspection visits from the Department's inspectors, and 91 per cent of these employers were found to be compliant.
The Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Ahern, said those abusing the system were "robbing the people who are genuinely dependent on welfare payments as well as the taxpayers".
"While I am concerned at the level of fraud being detected in the various areas, I believe that the vast majority of the people claiming social welfare payments are genuine," he added.
Meanwhile, a Bill introducing social welfare measures announced in the last Budget will be before the Dail today and tomorrow. Increases of between £25 and £30 in monthly Child Benefit and an £8 weekly increase in social welfare payments for non-pensioners are included in the Bill.
Fine Gael's spokesman on Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Brian Hayes, said many of the Bill's proposals merely "tinker with the social welfare system".
The Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed said the bill continued the Government's tendency to "give the lowest amount to people on the lowest incomes and the largest amounts to people on the largest incomes".
The organisation's welfare-to-work co-ordinator, Ms Camille Loftus, said for every £1 received by a person on social welfare through benefit increases between 1997 and 2001, someone on the average industrial wage received £4.10 through taxation measures.