Crackdown on social welfare fraud announced

The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has announced a crackdown on social welfare fraud targeting Irish and foreign workers who continue to claim the dole despite no longer living or working in Ireland.

Ms Hanafin said today that claimants will have to sign on at post offices weekly, rather than have the payments made automatically to them.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland , Ms Hanafin said the Department had made an immediate saving of around €1.5 million in its investigation of some 2,000 people or about 10 per cent of those on the Live Register who were not currently living in Ireland or seeking work here.

She said that across the scheme of social welfare payments, officials were targeting savings of between €530m to €540 million.

Dublin shop workers 'bribed to help in €1m laser card fraud'

Around €1m has been stolen from 300 bank accounts in one of the largest incidents of bank card fraud ever in Ireland.It is understood bank cards were cloned at points of sale in shops and restaurants around Dublin in the last few weeks.It is understood that criminals paid shop and restaurant workers up to €10,000 to skim laser cards and find out their pin numbers by looking over their shoulder - a practice called "shoulder surfing".The criminals withdrew cash from the unsuspecting victims in countries around mainland Europe, including Italy, Romania and Spain.

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