Over €115 million in social welfare payments wrongfully paid in 2023

Social welfare payments worth over €115 million were found to have been wrongly paid to citizens last year with six people having received more than €200,000 in benefit payments they were not entitled to.

The Department of Social Protection said they had recovered €87.3 million worth of overpayments last year with 78,714 individual customers left with a repayment bill.

The department said there were a variety of reasons for overpayments including genuine errors by claimants or welfare staff as well as deliberate bogus claims.

In one case, a person was paid an enormous €271,046 they weren’t eligible for through a non-contributory state pension.

Another person received €265,484 that they will have to repay after claims under the same state pension scheme.

There was another over-payment of €236,934 to an individual through the non-contributory state pension, which is paid at a rate of between €266 and €276 per week depending on age.

The fourth highest over-payment…