The Department of Social Protection has admitted it does not know how many allegations of welfare fraud submitted by members of the public actually lead to the detection of an offense, writes Joe Leogue.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar launched a publicity campaign promoting his department’s online and telephone fraud-reporting services, but the department said it does not track whether reports by the public were of merit and helped detect a fraud.

“The department does not track each individual report through the review and statutory decision process given the hearsay nature of the material such reports contain,” the department said in a statement.

However, figures released to the Irish Examiner reveal that more than one in four reports of fraud by members of the public lacked enough information to warrant any further investigation, or had no bearing on any entitlements received by the subject of the complaint.

Members of the public made 54,066 allegations of welfare fraud in the three years up to and including 2016.

Of these, 15,869 had “insufficient information to commence review of entitlement or entitlement would not be affected by information received”.

This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner.