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A MOTHER-OF-FOUR who stole around €100,000 in fraudulent social welfare payments has been sentenced to ten months in prison.
Maria Redmond (61) claimed an invalidity pension for 13 years while she was working as a cleaner in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin. Her lawyers told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that she had used the money to “pay her mortgage, keep a roof over her head and look after her children”.
Passing sentence today, Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Redmond’s motivating factor was to take care of her family, that she wasn’t a wealthy person and was unlikely to re-offend.
He said Redmond hadn’t been lucky in life, but that unfortunately she had gone down “the wrong route, the criminal route” and would have to suffer a level of incarceration.
Redmond of Comeragh Road, Drimnagh, Dublin pleaded guilty to 14 counts of stealing property from the Department of Social Protection between November 2002 and September 2015.
The court heard that although she had taken approximately €139,000 in social welfare payments, the State was in fact at a loss of about €100,000 as Redmond would have been entitled to a certain amount of benefits.
Redmond was caught after suspicious officials arranged for her to have her Public Services Card photograph taken.
Garda Ian Abbey told Diarmuid Collins BL, prosecuting, that Redmond had two PPS numbers in two different names, including her maiden name, Delaney. She had her second PPS number registered at her sister’s address.
The court heard Redmond was eligible for an invalidity pension when she first claimed it in 1995. However, when she started working in 2002, she failed to inform the department of her change in circumstances.
The court heard that officials in the department became suspicious that Redmond and Delaney were the same person and an investigation began. They spoke to her employers and obtained a copy of her passport photograph before arranging for Redmond to come in to get her Public Services Card.
Once Redmond’s photo was taken for the card, officials were able to determine she was the same person.
When arrested, Redmond told gardaí that because she was only working for three hours a day, she did not think she was doing anything wrong.
She said she knew it was wrong to apply for a second PPS number, but said a lot of people she knew were working and collecting social welfare. She told gardaí she was “sorry, ashamed and embarrassed”.
Defence barrister, Emmet Nolan BL, said his client, a separated woman with no previous convictions, was extremely remorseful for her actions. He said she had used the money to “pay her mortgage, keep a roof over her head and look after her children”.
The court heard that Redmond had married a chronic alcoholic who drank all his money and never contributed to the mortgage payments or running of the household.
The court heard Redmond earned €160 a week as a part-time cleaner at the time of the offending.
Judge Nolan said that if Redmond had “declared herself honestly” to social welfare, she would have been allowed to work and would have received a certain amount of State benefits.
Redmond is no longer working and receives €191 a week in social payments. She is repaying the money she stole from the department at a rate of €25 a week.
The court heard she is a chronic coeliac and suffers from depression and high anxiety.
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They are already talking about using this technology to cure phobias like speaking in public and other more general forms of social anxiety. The possibilities with this technology are immense and positively exciting.
More likely people will use them to escape social situations as we veer further towards a fully virtual society.
Porn, it’s going to be used for porn. Same as the Internet.
FFS get a grip,that was pure shite!
Jasus The Journal has gone downhill if this is considered newsworthy
They’ve always peddled fluff alongside the more pressing issues. Room for them both
Every weekday at 11am we have Take a Break, it’s generally a lighter video like this. We have about 60+ articles a day, so there’s plenty to read that isn’t like this.
Great, now look what you’ve done Cosmo. Hope you’re happy.
Pass no heed aoife you’re doing a sterling job. Snapchat hun?
Yes but not every video with an “Irish Mammy” is funny
I like the Journals work @Aoife. Never mind the bugrudgers! I think it’s a great video. .. shows how accessible it is. The Irish mammy dropping f-bombs is classic!!
Nothing to do with begrudging, it’s just my opinion and many others that it is cringeworthy and not remotely funny. Journal can do much better than this
Yawn
Was expecting more ‘
FFS Filming in portrait !
You’d think they’d make the cameras not record video in portrait by this stage…
Or you would think people would know to record with their phone sideways by now.
Was only a matter of time before these videos arrived.
I wonder what she was watching
It’s the jurassic Park clip. A sleeping bronctosauaus wakes up and comes over to you. It’s really cool
Why is the footage warping at sections around the womans body?
Illuminati and or NWO, with a possibility of lizard people shapeshifting
That’s nearly two minutes of my life wasted. On the plus side, at least she didn’t pepper the entire video with multiple effing and blinding which, unfortunately, one has come to expect from such Irish-made videos. But for gawd’s sake, why can’t the makers of them use landscape mode?
That looked like me coming home from the pub last night.
Have a look at that wine rack in the background, packed!! Bit early in the day to be drinking!
Are those the 30€ dunnes headsets?
Gear VR
That kitchen looks a bit dated!
Billy big balls cause he has an island in his
I think this is an advert…
This pornos great…
Actual scene, -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEKjamS9cTs
Can’t wait to play knockout kings on this so I can finally win a fight.
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