The Department of Social Protection saved over half-a-billion euro by preventing welfare fraud and overpayments last year.
It follows more than 21-thousand tip-offs from the public about suspected fraud.
According to this morning's Irish Times, the Department of Social Protection made "control savings" of 505 million euro in 2014 - 5 million euro below target.
That means the savings were made in cases where money would have been spent - were it not for fraud or overpayment prevention.
It follows a whole range of new control measures clamping down on welfare fraud.
21-thousand anonymous of suspected fraud tip-offs were made to the Department in 2014 - up from just under 1-thousand before the financial crisis.
Despite the high number of tips - only a small number of them result in payments being cut-off or scaled back.
However, 20 gardaí joined the department's special investigations unit for the first time last year - securing 68 million euro. While the Department made 83 million euro in recovered overpayments.
