New crackdown on welfare fraud may violate EU law
NEW measures aimed at cracking down on welfare fraud announced by Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin contravene EU law, the Sunday Independent has learned.
The proposal to compel newly unemployed Irish and foreign workers to sign for their dole payments at their local post office each week is unenforceable under European legislation protecting the right of social welfare recipients to freedom of movement within the EU.
At the time of her announcement, Ms Hanafin made much of the fact that her department had saved €1.5m following an investigation of 2,000 people on the Live Register who were not living in Ireland, or were not actively seeking work here.
The minister further claimed that that those suspected of continuing to claim social welfare in Ireland, but who had left the country, could be prosecuted under EU welfare rules.
Ms Hanafin neglected, however, to make reference to EU Regulation 1408/71 which allows any person in any member state receiving unemployment benefit to travel to another EU country in search of work, without losing entitlement to their original benefit.
In fairness to the minister, a number of conditions do attach to payment of Irish social welfare to claimants living in another EU state.
According to the legislation, the claimant is obliged to remain in Ireland for a period of four weeks after they become unemployed to look for work before leaving.
After that period has elapsed, and having travelled to the other EU country, the claimant is then required to register with the relevant welfare authority there.
From this point on, the claimant is legally entitled to continue claiming unemployment benefit from Ireland for a further three months without having to return here to sign for it.
These stipulations compound the task of identifying potential cases of welfare fraud by Irish and foreign workers who have gone to other EU states.
In their absence, the process of establishing whether an individual is drawing down their Irish-sourced unemployment benefit in another EU state is a relatively straightforward one.
Currently, some 600 personnel in the Department of Social and Family Affairs are engaged in the process of detecting welfare abuse and fraud.
This typically involves the review of welfare applications, home visits by regionally based social welfare officers and the issuing of mail shots to selected customers at their given Irish addresses.
The issue is especially sensitive for the minister in view of the latest statistics released by the Central Statistics Office last week. According to these, one in six of those signing on the Live Register is originally from outside the State, with the majority of these coming from the UK.
The 10 countries who joined the EU in 2004, coupled with Romania and Bulgaria who joined in 2007, account for just under 17,000, or one in 14, of the 238,000 now signing on the Live Register.
- RONALD QUINLAN
