Debate contribution: Economic Inactivity
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 18 May 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Economic Inactivity
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5548607
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Yes, the Member is absolutely right. Too much money — hundreds of millions of pounds — is being lost through benefit fraud every year. That money should be going to schools, hospitals and waste water infrastructure, which we have talked about today. My Executive paper on welfare fraud, which is about properly resourcing that work and ensuring that we claw back some of the fraudulently stolen money, is with ministerial colleagues, but I cannot even get it on the Executive's agenda. I do not know why Sinn Féin is so opposed to tackling the issue, but I will continue to push it, because that is the right thing to do. Fraud takes money away from those who genuinely need it and is paid for by every hard-working taxpayer in this country. It needs to end, because the people who get up every morning and go to work deserve a Government who are straight and honest with them on the issue.
160 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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