|
|
|
|
APPENDIX 16.UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT AND ASSISTANCE: FRAUDULENT CLAIMSMemorandum regarding question raised at Public Accounts Committee on 5 March 1970 regarding fraudulent claims to Unemployment Benefit and Unemployment Assistance by certain building trade workers. 1. The main administrative safeguard against fraudulent claiming in relation to unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance lies in control of the movement of the yearly insurance card. The current card should be either lodged with the local Employment Exchange or Employment Office during the currency of a claim for benefit or assistance or retained by an employer if the insured person concerned is employed. A further safeguard lies in the arrangements for signature of the unemployed register. It is a condition for payment of unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance that the claimant must follow a prescribed procedure as evidence that he is unemployed. The procedure requires him to attend at specified intervals at his local office or other appointed place and there sign or initial a declaration to the effect that he is or was unemployed, capable of and available for employment on a specific day or days. A prime element in the system of control of claims, and a most valuable safeguard in itself, is of course the alert and efficient supervision by local office staff of all claims to unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance and of the arrangements for proving unemployment. 2. Subject to certain relaxations in special cases at some centres the attendance requirements for proving unemployment are as follows: Persons living within two miles of a local office attend there daily, those living between two and four miles attend on alternate days and those living between four and six miles attend one day each week. Persons resident at a distance of more than six miles need not attend the local office at any time; instead, they have their declarations of unemployment certified weekly at their Garda Station or other signing centre and then post the evidence to the local office. Attendance is not required more than once weekly from persons over 65 years or from smallholder recipients of unemployment assistance. Certain classes of casual workers are required to sign the unemployed register on each day of unemployment if resident up to two miles from the local office even though relaxations such as are referred to earlier may operate for other workers. If it should prove necessary a person may be required to attend more than once on any day if the local office has any doubts—for example, by reason of erratic attendance of the claimant—as to his being genuinely unemployed. 3. Normally, signing times are arranged so that a person should not be able to attend the local office or other signing centre during normal working hours. Theoretically, therefore, in the absence of negligence or connivance on the part of the employer it should be difficult in the normal case for anyone to receive unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance while working. Apart from such instances of neglect etc. on an employer’s part, the possibility of fraudulent claims can nevertheless exist, particularly in the case of certain occupations where the nature of the employment or the hours of work tend to provide loopholes. These occupations include casual workers, such as dockers, and night workers. The building workers, known in the trade as “lumpers”, who operate as sub-contractors for plastering, block-laying, joinery, etc. work and who consequently need not produce an insurance card to the employer, would obviously fall into this category also. Special checks and arrangements for supervision of claims over and above those already referred to have always been a necessity at Exchanges to deal with these cases. For example, visitation of building sites was included in the duties of two outdoor officers attached to the two main Dublin Exchanges at Gardiner Street and Werburgh Street. The special nature and characteristics of casual employment at the Dublin docks and the methods of recruitment therefor also readily lend themselves to abuses of the schemes of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance by this class of workers which have in recent years assumed more serious dimensions. This has necessitated the introduction of especially elaborate counter-measures by the Department in relation to this type of employment, e.g. restriction of signing times; special arrangements with dock employer’s organisations for the regular supply of information regarding employment; improved measures to secure evidence of employment and payment of wages for prosecution purposes, etc. The introduction of daily signature of the unemployed register for Dublin dock workers where this is not already required is also at present in mind. In addition the whole question of additional facilities for the detection and prosecution of fraud cases in the Dublin docks area has been the subject of special representations and proposals, which have not yet come to fruition, to the Departments of Justice and Finance. The system whereby the Employment Exchanges and Offices under the control of the Department of Labour now operate as agents of this Department in relation to claims for unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance has proved to be a factor militating seriously against fully effective control and supervision of claims and disbursements at local offices. The Department accordingly last year sought sanction for certain additional staff to enable a continuous administrative audit of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance claims to be conducted from Head-quarters of this Department with the object of ensuring that effect is and continues to be given at local offices to the legal provisions governing title to unemployment payments and that any departures therefrom or laxities or mishandling of any kind would be brought promptly to notice for remedial action. 4. There has, for many years, been a special section in this Department for dealing with fraudulent claims to unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. This, of necessity, has mainly operated ex post facto, i.e. in pursuing cases where a fraudulent claim has come to light to the point where it can be placed in the hands of the Chief State Solicitor for prosecution action. Successful prosecution is believed to be one of the most effective deterrents to fraudulent claiming. The section referred to was strengthened in January last by the full-time assignment to it of an experienced Higher Executive Officer and by the attachment of two Social Welfare Officers for full-time outdoor duty in the pursuit of fraudulent claims in the Dublin area, other than the docks, for which special outdoor arrangements are envisaged. Additional Social Welfare Officers, also to be attached to the section, are being sought to cover other areas throughout the country. These extra outdoor control measures will, it is hoped, help to bring cases of fraudulent claiming more effectively and speedily to light though it would be unrealistic to expect that they will begin to be fully effective in this regard until the proposed additional control measures referred to earlier and for the implementation of which sanction is still awaited is forthcoming. 5. In the particular case of the building trade workers which was raised at the Public Accounts Committee meeting, the local office placement machinery affords an additional safeguard against irregular claims. It is known that normally there is a shortage of skilled building trade workers such as plasterers, block-layers, joiners, etc. In normal times claims from workers in these categories should immediately put the local office on the alert and the claimants concerned can be and are submitted for known vacancies. If an offer of suitable employment is refused then the claim can be referred to this Department for possible disallowance. 6. Paragraph 91 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General mentions that during the year (1968-69), twenty-three individuals were prosecuted for irregularly obtaining or attempting to obtain social assistance and that convictions were secured in twenty-two cases. It may be noted that all of these prosecutions related to unemployment assistance. It may also be noted that during the same year, fifty-three persons were similarly prosecuted for alleged offences in relation to unemployment benefit and that convictions were obtained in all cases but one. W. A. HONOHAN, Roinn Leasa Shóisialaigh, 24 Meitheamh 1970. |
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
