Welfare fraud is estimated to cost about 2 billion a year.
Hardly insignificant.
That 22 billion nama figure that is trotted out about a zillion times a day whenever anyone suggests cutting anything could be offset significantly if we tackled fraud.
Welfare fraud is estimated to cost about 2 billion a year.
Hardly insignificant.
That 22 billion nama figure that is trotted out about a zillion times a day whenever anyone suggests cutting anything could be offset significantly if we tackled fraud.
We should cut out ALL waste INCLUDING Anglo "investment", INBS "INVESTMENT", NAMA fees etc.........
Some people have a bee in their bonnet about social welfare fraud. We have enough inspectors to clamp down on it.
See the bigger picture
Reading through these responses to my OP (which was a bit of a kite really) I conclude that there is now an acceptable level of crime in the country and it's very evident here.
Imagine the chances of picking a jury to try a SW fraud case from this lot. Having found him/her 'not guilty' they'd probably recommend double SW payment backdated to the commencement of proceedings.
Methinks what-aboutery dominates our thinking now as never before and results in a softening of our attitudes.
Would the measures suggested in the OP be acceptable at any level of SW fraud ?
Suppose we had 50% or even higher fraud in that area, would that cause us to consider it or have we succumbed to compassion, forgiveness, sympathetic percipience or even turning a blind eye because after all the fat cats have already creamed it big time and nobody shouted 'STOP'. It's merely the turn of others now so to speak. Might these thoughts be influencing some responders ?
These corpulent types, one may say, were aided and abetted by the authorities at every turn to enrich themselves without restraint so therefore it is not acceptable to go after the minnows who feed a little better these days on the crumbs or overflow that fall from the feeding trough known as the public purse ......is that the thinking in some quarters ?
Have we actually reached that stage ?
No you see the bigger picture.Originally Posted by hammer
We should cut out ALL waste INCLUDING Anglo "investment", INBS "INVESTMENT", NAMA fees etc.........
Some people have a bee in their bonnet about social welfare fraud. We have enough inspectors to clamp down on it.
See the bigger picture
This thread is about social welfare fraud which is costing 2 billion a year, but all we get is the usual nama.....blah, blah....star of david...discrimination against the unemployed...blah
Tell you what, why don't we just do nothing at all on any topic, to express our disgust about nama.
I remember a couple of years ago it was proposed that people on the dole (at the height of the boom) should sign on in person every week. Response - thats treating them like second class citizens, absolute disgrace, like jews in nazi germany etc etc. Eventually it happened & we saved something like 500m in six months.
Introduce fingerprinting - whats the prob ? They have it in US immigration I believe.
Why should social welfare have to invent their own ID system - when a passport or driving license would be sufficient?
The real issues are:
a) non resident recipients - they should show up in person every week dont just give them a bank transfer. Many dont live here at all and the recent volcanic ash ban on flights resulted in a huge reduction in welfare recipients.
b) the black market. If substantial penalties were on those who employ black labour then that market would be shut down forcing all employees to become legitimate.
Sadly the government have failed by not leading by example and now these people have little or no respect for the system or the law
If say FF were to have a purge of the banks and the government, round up the architects of the countries economic decline, the destruction of it's future and peoples lives but prosecuting the people involved including some front benches..then they have a moral right.
Sadly without this leadership we will have a society that will pretty much do what they want and take what they can. Sad,wrong but true.
I think the advantage of biometric data over a passport or drivers license is that you can be 100% sure of who's standing in front of you, and that they're not signing onto the system twice under another name.
Not sure whether the savings would warrant the investment in biometrics, but the yanks obviously feel it worthwhile & we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.
We just have to get past the idea that its not worth bothering with or that its somehow a violation of someones human rights or whatever.
And this idea that if you're caught defrauding, you get to pay back a fiver a week out of the dole you still get paid is beyond belief.
I'm uncomfortable posting this at a
time when we're letting so many of
our 'captains of industry' off the hook
and beggaring us all for decades to
come. (Not that I've been able to do
much taxpaying lately). But here it
comes anyway.
The so-called mickey money. How
about stating that, say, 9 months
(or so) from enactment, there will be
no new welfare paid to unmarried
claimants over and above what they'd
normally receive as individuals?
(This from someone unfamiliar with
the sytem - as a self-employed person,
I'm entitled to pretty much nothing).
How about eliminating the need for social welfare altogether by nationalising the land and means of production of the nation.
What you are suggesting here is to penalise people for the fact that a tiny minority own the wealth of Ireland.
Yes, that's the amount given every year in handouts to wealthy landowners, i.e. farmers.
