In one of her first acts, Hargey makes it harder to highlight fraudsters

Within days of the new power-sharing executive being established, Sinn Fein rushes to send out two messages.

First to complain about, and demand more money, from a British Treasury that has only ever been generous to Northern Ireland, from before World War II, through the earliest days of the welfare state, through the long and devastating terror of the Troubles, then after the ceasefires.

Then republicans go on to imply that this vast generosity is in fact their own, and announce things such as Deirdre Hargey has done, that her department will not name benefit cheats.

The implied generosity is that local politicians will ensure that the money will continue to be free-flowing and perhaps even that benefit cheating is exaggerated by cruel, mean Tory-Brits when in truth it has been obtained by good, hard-pressed folk who are just trying to make a living.

As a result of the new Communities minister’s edict, the department’s practice of identifying such fraudsters will cease. Any such offender will rest more comfortably in the knowledge that it will be harder for the media to find out.

Welfare fraud is a serious matter for a simple reason: the great bulk of people, be they people in employment who claim few or no benefits or be they people whose income is wholly dependent on benefits for sound reasons, do not cheat the system. If they did, the country would be bankrupted and welfare provision would be made impossible and the people in the greatest emotional, physical or financial need would suffer badly, as they do in poor societies that lack a safety net.

Every pound lost to welfare fraud is a pound lost to society as a whole, and its ability to fund crucial public projects: from defence to transport to hospitals to schools.

Constant vigilance over welfare and other public funding is essential to minimise such financial losses to good causes.

Ms Hargey as one of her very first acts as minister has moved to reduce that vigilance.