The taxpayer has been left to foot the bill for more than \u20ac15m worth of incorrect welfare payments over the past two years.<\/p>\n
A total of \u20ac7.97m in benefits were written off last year, up more than \u20ac300,000 on the equivalent figure of \u20ac7.64m from 2023.<\/p>\n
The Department of Social Protection said overpayments of welfare were written off \u2014 either partially or in-full \u2014 when there was \u201cno prospect of future recovery\u201d of the cash.<\/p>\n
It said 75% of these payments related to people who were deceased, while other overpayments of less than \u20ac100 were considered uneconomical to pursue.<\/p>\n
The department said that when a write-off takes place, it could be re-examined if the financial circumstances of the person involved changed for the better.<\/p>\n
An information note said: \u201c[We operate] a structured debt management policy in line with normal good practice in recovery of overpayments, including yearly statements issued to customers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Data released under freedom of information shows that nearly \u20ac3.1m of the money written off last year related to the non-contributory state pension.<\/p>\n
A further \u20ac1.44m was deemed irrecoverable from the contributory State pension, as well as around \u20ac841,000 in illness benefits.<\/p>\n
Other payments where there were six-figure write-offs included invalidity pensions, jobseekers\u2019 benefit, pensions for widows or widowers, and one-parent family payments.<\/p>\n
The department said that during the same period of 2023 and 2024, there had been welfare overpayments totalling \u20ac273m.<\/p>\n
There was a sharp increase in overpayments last year, a total of \u20ac157.5m as compared to a twelve-month figure of \u20ac115.8m in 2023.<\/p>\n
The department said these could occur where false or misleading information was provided by a person seeking a benefit payment.<\/p>\n
It said overpayments could also be caused by error, either on behalf of the applicant or by the department itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersons who have been overpaid social welfare have a liability to refund the overpayment as they have been in receipt of a payment to which they were not entitled,\u201d said an information note.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverpayments in any given year represent less than 0.5% of total expenditure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The highest overpayments last year were recorded on the pandemic unemployment payment, the State pension, and jobseekers\u2019 allowance.<\/p>\n
The department said that in 2023, it had recovered more than \u20ac87m worth of overpaid welfare payments.<\/p>\n
Last year, that figure rose to just over \u20ac100m, according to records released under freedom of information laws.<\/p>\n
A note said: \u201cWhere an overpayment occurs, the department seeks to recover the full value of the overpayment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the potential impact of overpayment recovery on customers with limited means, appropriate controls are required to ensure fairness and reasonableness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The department said if a person was still in receipt of a welfare payment, deductions of up to 15% were the norm.<\/p>\n
If the person involved was now in full-time employment but declined to repay the money, the department said it would consider making \u201can attachment of earnings order\u201d for automatic deductions from their bank account.<\/p>\n
The department said it would always work with customers to ensure there was no \u201cundue financial hardship\u201d in any plan for recoupment of cash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The taxpayer has been left to foot the bill for more than \u20ac15m worth of incorrect welfare payments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,2090],"class_list":{"0":"post-159195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-pensions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115481562798177811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}