PART V

Measures to Combat Abuse

28. —For the purposes of investigating entitlement to any benefit, pension, assistance, allowance or supplement under the Principal Act or under schemes administered by or on behalf of the Minister or the Department of Social Welfare, the Minister may require such persons as may be prescribed to provide him with such information in relation to such persons or classes of persons as the Minister may determine and any person so prescribed shall be required to provide such information as may be required.

29. —(1) Where an employer has failed to keep records under regulations made under section 15 (5) of the Principal Act or has failed to make a notification under regulations made under section 15A (inserted by section 2 of the No. 2 Act of 1987 and amended by section 19 of the Act of 1989) of the Principal Act and an employee of the employer receives payment, due wholly or partly by reason of that failure, of disability benefit, unemployment benefit, retirement pension, invalidity pension, unemployment assistance, pre-retirement allowance or family income supplement under that Act which he was not entitled to receive in respect of any day on which he was in the employment of the said employer, such employer shall be liable to pay to the Minister on demand a sum not exceeding the amount of benefit, pension, assistance, allowance or supplement which was paid to the said employee and that sum, if not repaid by the employee, may be recovered by the Minister as a simple contract debt in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(2) It shall be presumed until the contrary is proved that any payment aforesaid was made wholly or partly by reason of the employer's failure to keep the said records or to make the said notification referred to in subsection (1) of this section.

(3) Where there is a material difference between any document issued by an employer, his servant or agent to an employee and any other document furnished to the Minister or to the Collector-General and an employee, wholly or partly as a result of that difference, receives benefit or assistance under the Principal Act to which he was not entitled, such employer shall be liable to pay to the Minister on demand a sum not exceeding the amount of benefit, pension, assistance, allowance or supplement which was paid to the said employee and such sum, if not repaid by the employee, may be recovered by the Minister as a simple contract debt in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) of this section an employee shall include the employee's spouse and any other member of the employee's household whose entitlement to benefit or assistance is regulated or adjusted by the income of the employee.

(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (1) or (3) of this section or any other provisions of the Social Welfare Acts or regulations made under or applying the provisions of those Acts under which amounts of benefit, assistance or supplement may be recovered, the amount recovered by the Minister in any case may not exceed the amount of benefit, assistance or supplement received by the employee which he was not entitled to receive.

30. — Section 115 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the insertion after subsection (2) of the following subsection:

“(2A) (a) Any employer, or any servant or any agent acting on behalf of such employer, who, for the purpose of evading or reducing the amount of his liability in respect of employment contributions which he is liable to pay under this Part and which he has not paid—

(i) knowingly makes any false statement or false representations or knowingly conceals any material fact, or

(ii) produces or furnishes, or causes or knowingly allows to be produced or furnished, any document or information which he knows to be false in a material particular,

shall be guilty of an offence.

(b) A person who is guilty of an offence under this subsection shall be liable—

(i) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000 or (at the discretion of the court) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both, or

(ii) on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding £10,000 or (at the discretion of the court) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both.”.

31. —Where an employer issues to an employee a statement containing the particulars specified in section 9 of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973 , he shall retain a copy of such statement for a period of two years from the date on which that statement was issued and shall furnish such copy on demand to an inspector for inspection under section 114 of the Principal Act.

32. —Subsection (6) of section 20 of the Act of 1988 is hereby amended by the insertion of “or under regulations made under or applying the provisions of the Principal Act” after “Principal Act”.

33. — Section 174 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution for subsection (3) of the following subsections:

“(3) The personal representative of a person who was at any time in receipt of a pension shall before distributing the assets of the person—

(a) (i) inform the Minister, by notice, in writing delivered to the Minister, of his intention to distribute the assets, and

(ii) provide the Minister with a schedule of the assets of the estate,

not less than three months before the distribution commences, and

(b) if requested in writing by the Minister within eight weeks of the furnishing of the notice and schedule of assets referred to in paragraph (a), ensure that sufficient assets are retained, to the extent (if any) appropriate, to repay any sum which is determined to be due to the Minister or the State (as the case may be) in respect of—

(i) payment of pension to the person at a time when the person was not entitled to receive the pension, or

(ii) payment of pension to the person of an amount in excess of the amount which the person was entitled to receive.

(3A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Chapter, for the purposes of determining the sum which is due to the Minister under subsection (3), the means of the deceased person for the period in respect of which pension was paid to him shall, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be calculated on the basis that his assets at the time of his death belonged to him for that entire period.

(3B) The Minister may mitigate amounts determined to be due in accordance with subsection (3A) where it appears equitable to him to do so.”.

34. — Section 169 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the insertion after subsection (10) of the following subsection:

“(11) Any proceedings to recover a debt due to the State under subsection (3) of this section or due to the Minister under section 172 (2) shall be maintainable against the estate of a deceased person if brought at any time within the period of two years commencing on the date on which the notice and the schedule of assets under paragraph (a) of section 174 (3) is received by the Minister or within any other period fixed in any other enactment, whichever is the longer.”.

35. — Section 300 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the insertion after paragraph (a) of subsection (5) of the following paragraph:

“(aa) Where any benefit, assistance, supplement or child benefit will, by virtue of the revised decision, be disallowed or reduced or a qualification certificate under Chapter 2 of Part III is revoked and the revised decision is given in the light of new evidence or new facts which have been brought to the notice of the deciding officer or appeals officer (as the case may be) since the original decision was given, it shall take effect from such date as that officer shall determine having regard to the new facts or new evidence.”.

36. —(1) Section 120 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution for subsection (2) (inserted by section 45 of the Act of 1990) of the following subsection:

“(2) The assets of a limited company in a winding-up under the Companies Acts, 1963 to 1990, shall not include—

(a) any sum deducted by an employer from such remuneration of an employee of his as was paid prior to the winding-up in respect of an employment contribution due and unpaid by the employer in respect of such contribution, or

(b) any sum which would have been deducted from the remuneration of an employee in respect of an employment contribution for a period of employment prior to a winding-up had such remuneration been paid prior to such winding-up,

and in such a winding-up a sum equal in amount to the sum so deducted and unpaid or which would have been deducted and payable, shall notwithstanding anything in those Acts, be paid to the Social Insurance Fund in priority to the debts specified in section 285 (2) of the Companies Act, 1963 .”.

(2) Section 120(3) of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution of “A sum equal in amount to any sum” for “Any sum”.

37. — Section 285 (2) (e) of the Companies Act, 1963 (as extended by section 45 of the Act of 1990) is hereby amended by the substitution for paragraph (e) of the following paragraph:

“(e) unless the company is being wound up voluntarily merely for the purposes of reconstruction or of amalgamation with another company—

(i) all amounts due in respect of contributions which are payable during the 12 months next before the relevant date by the company as the employer of any persons under the Social Welfare Acts, and

(ii) all amounts due in respect of contributions which would have been payable under the provisions of section 10 (1) (b) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981 , by the company as the employer of any persons in respect of any remuneration in respect of any period of employment during the 12 months next before the relevant date even if such remuneration is paid after the relevant date.”.

38. —The Principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution for section 117 of the following section:

“Recovery of sums due to Social Insurance Fund.

117.—(1) All sums due to the Social Insurance Fund shall be recoverable as debts due to the State and, without prejudice to any other remedy and notwithstanding the assignment by any regulations under section 15 (2) to the Collector-General of any function referred to in that section in relation to employment contributions or the assignment by any regulations under section 17F (2) to the Collector-General of any function referred to in that section in relation to self-employment contributions, may be recovered by the Minister as a debt under statute in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(2) Notwithstanding any provision in any enactment specifying the period within which proceedings may be commenced to recover a debt under statute, any proceedings for the recovery of any sums due to the Social Insurance Fund by way of employment contributions under section 10 (1) or self-employment contributions under section 17B may be brought and shall be maintainable at any time.”.