New measures introduced to tackle social welfare fraud include checkpoints in border areas.
Department of Social Welfare inspectors are to be given powers to inspect vehicles at checkpoints set up by Gardaí or Customs Officials in a new crackdown on social welfare fraud.
Some checkpoints have been beefed up significantly in a crackdown on social welfare fraud.
Checks will involve collaboration between Gardaí, Customs & Excise Officials, and social welfare inspectors. Cyril Havelin, Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, explains how the system will work to establish if someone is currently working and signing on.
All the rigours of the law will be brought to bear on the situation.
Around ten pilot checkpoints have already been tried out. In one case where 60 vehicles were checked, five per cent revealed breaches of social welfare regulations. In another case, 15 per cent of vehicles had occupants breaking the social welfare laws and they now face court proceedings.
Under the new laws, social welfare inspectors will also have the power to remove documents from an employer's premises for further examination.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins finds the measures unacceptable and describes them as draconian. He believes there is now the prospect of checkpoints at the entrance to every working class housing estate.
The rip off of the taxpayer in a major way over the past years has not been unemployed people but it has been powerful, vested interests in this society such as banks and such as political parties giving massive tax amnesties to the super rich.
Joe Higgins suggests that security checks should be placed at the doors of prominent politicians and bank executives rather than targeting vulnerable people.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 8 February 1999. The reporter is Ingrid Miley.
