Over 10,000 investigations into suspected welfare fraud last year
The Department of Social Protection launched nearly 10,600 investigations into suspected welfare fraud last year.
The state also recovered more than €82 million in social welfare payments in 2019.
Last year the department received nearly 14,700 reports of social welfare fraud.
After these allegations were filtered, 10,590 were referred for investigation.
Of these cases, 114 were referred to the Chief State Solicitors Office for criminal prosecution - a 13% increase on the year before.
77 of these cases related to Job Seeker's Allowance.
A separate 98 criminal cases were finalised in court with 85 people convicted, two of whom were jailed.
Jason O'Sullivan, the principal and founder of JOS Solicitors, says investigations into social welfare fraud are complicated.
"They have to do a lot of due dilligence in investigating," said Mr O'Sullivan.
"They will have to first look at the circumstances of the individual case and the circumstances of the alleged offence.
"They will have to appraise the evidence that's available. Then at that stage they have to look at the duration of the fraud or abuse, the size of the over payment and also if there is any mitigating or aggravating circumstances relating to it."
The department also recovered more than 82 million euro in payments from over 100,000 social-welfare recipients last year.
