{"id":293752,"date":"2026-02-12T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293752\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:05:11","slug":"dups-crackdown-on-welfare-fraud-in-northern-ireland-should-be-just-a-first-step-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293752\/","title":{"rendered":"DUP\u2019s crackdown on welfare fraud in Northern Ireland should be just a first step \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the United States<\/a>, under a law passed by president Abraham Lincoln, it is possible \u2013 although unusual \u2013 for any person to take another to court for welfare fraud and keep up to 30 per cent of the money recovered.<\/p>\n

The DUP<\/a> is on the cusp of giving Stormont<\/a> a comparable ability. Gordon Lyons, the party\u2019s Minister for Communities, is in discussions with the UK treasury to keep half the savings from tackling benefit fraud and error. All savings are currently retained by London. Lyons says this can deliver an initial \u00a325 million (\u20ac28 million) a year for the Northern Ireland<\/a> Executive, with more coming in as his department employs additional inspectors and introduces new processes and technology.<\/p>\n

That would add 0.2 per cent to Stormont\u2019s block grant, not an insignificant sum. But Lyons is interested in more than money \u2013 he wants a broader debate on the politics and ethics of the benefits system. Last year, he resumed publicising the names of people convicted of benefit fraud. This had been stopped in 2020 by his Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> predecessor, who called the practice \u201cunnecessary\u201d.<\/p>\n

Explaining his decision, Lyons told the Assembly<\/a> benefit fraud is \u201cnot just a financial issue\u201d but also a \u201cmoral one\u201d. \u201cWhen individuals cheat the system, they are not stealing from a faceless entity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are taking from their neighbours, their friends, and their fellow citizens. They are undermining the very safety net that so many rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would sound like a statement of the obvious in most places and to most people but it is unusually debatable in Northern Ireland, even as a technical observation.<\/p>\n

Although welfare is devolved and Stormont administers claims, Westminster<\/a> pays the bill directly as long as Stormont runs a carbon copy of the system in Britain. That is also why London keeps any savings.<\/p>\n

A perverse feature of this unique arrangement is that Stormont has no financial incentive to keep the bill down. On the contrary, Executive parties \u2013 including the DUP \u2013 generally take the view that more UK money flowing into Northern Ireland is always good, however bad a deal it is for UK taxpayers overall. The Renewable Heat Incentive<\/a> was the most notorious example. While no minister has ever said this of benefit fraud, they have always encouraged the maximum possible benefit uptake. Lyons is the first to pursue a serious crackdown on fraudulent claims. Doing so before he has secured a savings deal with London shows his moral conviction is genuine.<\/p>\n

Tackling fraud tends to be popular with voters. Anonymous tip-offs have risen by a half since Lyons launched his \u201czero tolerance\u201d campaign and there has been no sign of any public backlash.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ex-SAS commander in North: \u2018The idea that we played hard and fast with the law is nonsense\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

That makes other parties reluctant to criticise the Minister, even when they are uncomfortable with the tone of his message.<\/p>\n

Nor is the crackdown\u2019s aim entirely punitive. A condition of the treasury deal is that any savings have to be reinvested into programmes to help people into work, in particular those with disabilities and health conditions. This is a priority in the Executive\u2019s programme for government, as Lyons has noted.<\/p>\n

So Sinn F\u00e9in has focused on questioning if the numbers add up \u2013 the same approach it took in 2017 when Leo Varadkar promised a welfare fraud crackdown as minister for social protection.<\/p>\n

John O\u2019Dowd, Stormont\u2019s Sinn F\u00e9in Minister for Finance, has refused to fund the upfront costs of a tougher inspection regime. His scepticism is warranted. More inspections will be expensive, little money is recovered in most cases and the treasury intends to drive a hard bargain on proof of savings.<\/p>\n

A deal of the type Lyons is seeking has been on offer from London since the 2015 Fresh Start Agreement. Sinn F\u00e9in and DUP ministers have previously considered it not worth the bother.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018John O\u2019Dowd pints\u2019 proved the final straw for Sinn F\u00e9in in pub and hotel rates rowOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Lyons could easily be criticised for underselling potential savings. Fraud was officially estimated last year at \u00a3233 million or 2.5 per cent of the benefits bill, with error another 1.2 per cent. These figures are clearly conservative \u2013 they include near-zero estimates for disability benefits, for example.<\/p>\n

A crackdown could aim to secure savings for Stormont in the order of \u00a3100 million. Even at that it is small change beside the financial debate all Executive parties are avoiding. Stormont could take proper control of large parts of the benefits system, as Scotland did a decade ago, by striking a deal with the treasury to take over those parts of the budget. The sums this could make available for Stormont to spend as it sees fit would be vast \u2013 total benefits spending is \u00a39 billion a year, on top of the \u00a318 billion block grant. The greatest favour Lyons could do for Northern Ireland would be forcing this question. If Stormont can tackle fraud to get people into work, why can it not take on further basic responsibilities?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the United States, under a law passed by president Abraham Lincoln, it is possible \u2013 although unusual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26189,61,60,43,23368,2443,103173,3415,26190],"class_list":{"0":"post-293752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-democratic-unionist-party","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newton-emerson","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-northern-ireland-assembly","15":"tag-sinn-fein","16":"tag-stormont-assembly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}