The tax office has paid out hundreds of millions of euros in healthcare, child, housing and other benefits which people were not entitled to, RTL news reports on Friday.

In total, €1.5bn has been paid to people not entitled to the money since the supplementary benefit system was set up in 2006. The total benefit bill since then is €80bn.

The benefits are paid in advance and verified later, leading to widespread fraud, RTL news says. Earlier this year, it emerged that Bulgarian gangs were exploiting loopholes to claim child and housing benefits running into tens of thousands of euros.

Of the wrongly paid out cash, €273m cannot be recovered and €200m will be difficult to claim back without legal action, RTL says. The cabinet is making plans to simplify the benefit system and make it more fraud-resistant.