Private debt collectors to go after welfare fraudsters

Idbatterim

taken from todays independent.

MICHAEL BRENNAN DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR – 26 MARCH 2013

THE Government is considering using private debt collectors to recover social welfare fraud and overpayments, court fines and unpaid hospital bills.

Desperate to recover the unpaid millions, it is hiring consultants to examine how much it costs the public service to try to recover unpaid debts in terms of staff, buildings and technology.

And for the first time, it is going to investigate the benefit of handing over the task completely to private debt-collection agencies.

Outsourcing of private debt collectors would represent a major departure in Government policy -- and would mean that the public-sector staff currently carrying out this work would be given new tasks instead.

The Department of Social Protection is currently owed over ¿340m by welfare recipients who were overpaid by mistake or made fraudulent claims.

The Revenue, which has a reputation for aggressively pursuing tax, is still owed ¿1.3bn in outstanding bills, according to the 2011 figures -- its most recent annual report.

Although some bodies, such as the University of Limerick, have begun to employ debt collectors to recover unpaid student fees, there is no uniform approach across the public service.

The Irish Independent has learned that Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin's department has now set up a "debt management project" examining the potential for using debt collectors.

It is going to hire consultants to investigate whether private debt collectors would be more efficient than the public servants currently tasked with recovering the money.

The bodies being examined include the Department of Social Protection, the Department of the Environment, the Revenue, the Courts Service and the HSE. The consultants will also be asked to find out if it would be cheaper and more efficient to centralise all debt-collection staff in the public sector into one unit.

The study is due to begin next month and is expected to be completed by the autumn.

It will be up to Mr Howlin and his Cabinet colleagues to decide on whether to employ private debt collectors once the consultants' report has been completed.

Didillusioned
Collapse
If these private debt collectors are anything like the car clamping firms they will be thugs and operate possibly outside the law or just shy of that. Wait for the first compensation claim against them.

then you get comments like this, all this uncollected money, has to be found somewhere else, i.e. further welfare cuts, income taxes etc & were meant to have sympathy for them?!

Eddyco
Collapse
It is very easy, people who are caught are most likely still on benefits or they are working.... If on benefits, deduct at source if working use Revenue???? Isn't that going to be the way for home tax?? Why pay extra to others to do it??

whats the problem with doing this? In the case of fraud, I believe the minimum consequence should be at least doubling what was defrauded from us other citizens and deduct it from welfare payments with immediate effect!

hfallada

The us government is incredible at collecting debt as it gets info from all agencies to track down people. You can get several calls a day if you don't pay your student loan. Plus since it the government and you change your number within a week they have figured it out and are calling you again.

I find it weird how are these apparently the government plans on doing this next is all in the Irish independent with little info to back the article up rather than sources.

If you fraudulently claim welfare you should be cut off or put on minimal amount. You do the crime and should feel consequences

Cookie_Monster

would it not be far more useful to spend money on consolidating and linking the databases of the various department, quangos and organisations so they can confer and share data like addresses, PPS numbers etc to target and track people and then have the existing staff do the work