DEAD man's birthday

There was a case today in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that says it all about welfare fraud. A 65-year-old man Patrick McLoughlin drew his pal's pension for 23 years after his death. From Ballyfermot, Dublin, he admitted to a sample of charges of forging pension vouchers from 1984 until 2007. The fraud was discovered when welfare officials were getting ready to pay out a bonus to mark the man's 100th birthday. When an official called to the dead man's address the new owner said he'd bought the house in 1989, only then did they get a death cert dating from 1984. The case has been adjourned for sentence. It took a while for the bureaucracy to join the dots.

WELFARE fraud

The mundane reality of fraud made an appearance today. A report (read here) was launched by a Dail committee in which the author, Roisin Shortall TD, said that last year €476 million was saved through "anti-fraud mechanisms" and that the "target" for 2009 is €600 million. She argued that the schemes most open to abuse such as payments for single mothers and job-seekers' allowances should be more closely monitored. There doesn't appear to be any evidence in the report of concentrated efforts by crime gangs to defraud the system as has happened in the in the UK. Usually the fraud is carried out by ordinary people who forget to tell the authorities about a change in their status - such as the Dublin woman who collected her dead mother's pension for 12 years (read it). Then there's the 'lone' parents whose partner hasn't really left at all - not surprisingly they are difficult cases to prove.

WELFARE Fraud

THE Irish government is getting tough about handing out welfare cash. A fraud investigation during March in which 2,700 claims were checked, resulted in 275 claims being suspended - saving up to €3 million. In 2008 the government saved €476 million on fraudulent claims below the projected €536 million. The shortfall was blamed on staff being re-directed to cope with the surge in claims as the recession hit home and people lost their jobs. Deemed 'high-risk' were claims made by foreign nationals living in Ireland. Photo ID is now necessary when collected welfare payments.

Most fraudulent claims turn out to be individuals continuing to collect cash to which they lost their entitlement. It would naive in the extreme, however, to think that organised crime gangs don't target welfare systems. One of the biggest dole-fraud operations was carried out in the UK by a family of Irish travellers. Based near Bristol, the Maughans and others, spent more than a year cashing forged welfare checks. It took a nine-month investigation to track them down by which time they had stolen st£500,000. Last year Patrick Maughan was ordered to pay back nearly st£300,000 after serving his four year jail sentence.