Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív has said 347 criminal cases involving social welfare recipients were finalised in court last year, an increase of 38 on the previous year.
301 criminal cases were referred to the Chief State Solicitors Office for the initiation of prosecution proceedings.
The Minister was addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs.
The Minister told the Committee that in 2009, 6,400 anonymous reports of suspected social welfare fraud were made by members of the public to the Department's control section based on Carrick-on-Shannon, a dramatic increase from the 1,000 reports made in the previous year.
In the first three months of 2010, 2,729 anonymous reports were received, while 1,099 reports were received in the same period last year.
Since the beginning of the year, members of the public have been able to report suspected social welfare fraud online, through the Department's website.
Despite these figures, Mr Ó Cúiv said the level of fraud is very low.
He said that the Comptroller and Auditor General had identified the following levels of fraud for various social welfare schemes: pensioners 0%, illness benefit 0.1%, family income supplement 0.8%, child benefit 1.8%, disability allowance 2.3%.
Members of the Committee reminded the Minister that as the Department's budget is enormous, that these seemingly small percentages represent very large sums of money.
Members also made the point that if fraud had been avoided it may not have been necessary to make social welfare cuts.
The Minister told the Committee that in 2009 the Department carried out 750,000 reviews of social welfare payment entitlements. Consequent social welfare fraud and error savings were recorded as reaching €484m.
The target for fraud and error savings for 2010 has been set at €533m. However, deputies told the Minister the target should be higher as it had effectively been revised downwards in previous years.
