My department is committed to ensuring that only those people who are eligible, receive welfare and other payments.  All schemes operated by my department are subject to ongoing control reviews and continuing eligibility checks.  During 2025, my department carried out approximately 716,500 control reviews across a range of schemes.

All recipients are required to notify my department of any changes in circumstance which may impact their payment.  This includes plans to be absent from the State.  Claimants are informed of this requirement when their payment is awarded and on an ongoing basis.

Data on social welfare payments is systematically and periodically matched against other data sources from external bodies including from the Department of Justice, of individuals who are no longer entitled to remain in the State and any social welfare payments in place are stopped.

Debt management and recovery of overpayments is a key part of the work of the Department.  All overpayments, regardless of the cause of the overpayment, are pursued for full recovery.  A social welfare debt will not become statute barred for recovery.  It remains with a debtor for all future payments and can be collected thereafter from any remaining estate.  

Overpayments in any given year represent less than 0.5% of total expenditure and in this context it is important to note that overpayments arising from customers being paid while absent from the state represents less than 3% of overpayment cases raised in any given year. 

The table below provides information on the number of customers who have been determined to have been overpaid a social welfare payment, by reason of being absent from the state, broken down by year.  A breakdown by category to determine if the overpayment occurred due to suspected fraud, customer error or official error is not available.  Detail of the country in which the customer was resident in while absent from Ireland is also not available.

Table 1 - Number of customers determined to have been overpaid by reason of absence from the State

I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.