An Independent TD has said that an audit which showed that basic controls were not adhered to in regard to payments to asylum seekers risked making Irish people feeling like second-class citizens – as it was also revealed overpayments will not be pursued.
Carol Nolan, TD for Laois Offaly, said that the failure to ensure systemic oversight in the process for asylum seeker payment meant the Irish public were “being treated as second class citizens by second rate minister”.
“Government departments have been now shown time and time that they are either incompetent, indifferent or irresponsible when it comes to systemic oversight of these issues,” she told Gript.
“Is there anything they can actually do with skill except annoy and infuriate the Irish public who are being treated as second class citizens by second rate ministers?” she asked.
The audit, carried out by the office of the Comptroller & Auditor General shows that the controls for welfare payments were not applied to migrants in accommodation centres receiving daily expenses allowance.
Daily expenses allowance for individuals seeking asylum were paid electronically instead of by signing on at a post office from March 2020 to mid-2022, the audit found.
Recipients of jobseekers allowances also could also avail of electronic transfer during the pandemic, which was reversed in February 2022.
In addition, asylum seekers were also allowed to claim the allowance even if they moved out of the designated accommodation centres “despite the normal control being that the claimant is eligible only if they reside in a designated centre”, the report said, pointing to the Covid pandemic as a point where controls were set aside.
“Since February 2022, the Department has not received information from the accommodation centres to confirm recipients were still residing in a centre and no mitigating controls were in place by the end of 2022,” the audit found.
The Department has stated that it is no longer possible to enforce the residential control in all locations due to the unprecedented increase in applicants for international protection arriving in 2022.
“However, listings of claimants who received international protection status and those moving accommodation were circulated to the relevant local Department offices,” it added.
The auditors pointed out that the department was ‘not in compliance with its statutory responsibilities in operating the scheme’ – and that means testing was not carried out in the case where asylum seekers might be working.
In regard to means testing, the auditors said that “a normal control is that new claims are reviewed after 8-10 months. Department staff are automatically notified when the review is due. However, these notifications have not been actioned since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, in February 2022. ”
“However, the audit found that the Department has not conducted any means assessments of claimants — the value of irregular payments cannot therefore be established and the Department is not in compliance with its statutory responsibilities in operating the scheme,” the report said.
The inability to assess the value of irregular payments meant that the authorities would be unable to recoup the cost to the taxpayer, it has been claimed.
According to the Daily Mail, the Department of Social Protection “has confirmed it will not seek to recoup extra monies paid to asylum seekers as means-testing will only begin next month”.
As previously reported on Gript, the report from the Comptroller and Auditor General – a body which is tasked with auditing government spending – on the Accounts of the Public Services for 2022, showed that the issue had been raised before September 2023.
The report found that:
The daily expenses allowance is a means-tested entitlement for claimants in a designated accommodation centre. Legislation requires the Department to conduct a means assessment after the claimant has been in receipt of income for at least 12 weeks, and to reduce or terminate the allowance to reflect any increase in means.
However this was not done.
If asylum applicants are employed and earning more than €125 a week, then the daily expenses allowance may be cut, the government has now said. It was reported that a third of those claiming the allowance are, in fact, working – and that savings of €10 million in taxpayers funds might be expected from means testing.