Personal care budgets should only be paid out to people who speak good Dutch in an effort to stamp out fraud, the head of a Rotterdam health insurance company said on Tuesday.

DSW chief Chris Oomen told local broadcaster RTV Rijnmond that many more conditions should be attached to the personal care budget system but that a language check is a good way to prevent fraud.

Oomen was referring to a major fraud in Schiedam last year in which three Turkish sisters are accused of defrauding the state of €2m in personal care budgets. They had convinced a number of elderly people who did not speak Dutch that they needed to ask for the care via their own care agency.

The criminal investigation into the fraud is due to be completed this week.