Bank accounts of suspected welfare fraudsters to be inspected
The Government is to bring forward legislation to strenghen the powers of social welfare inspectors to investigate welfare fraud.
Joan Burton says 17,000 allegations of fraud were made last year.
The Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, is to introduce legislation to strenghen the powers of social welfare inspectors to investigate welfare fraud.
Her spokesperson said that that one of the new measures will empower designated officers to make inquiries of landlords.
The Department of Social Protection said almost 17,000 allegations of fraud were recorded last year, an increase of 5,000 on 2010.
Over 30,000 fraud investigations or inquiries were completed and 750 employer inspections were undertaken.
270 cases were considered for prosecution for fraud offences under the Social Welfare Act, while 174 cases were referred to gardaí for criminal prosecution.
The Government is also to bring forward legislation to enable Social Welfare officials to investigate suspected fraud and present these findings directly to the Director for Public Prosecutions.
Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said today that the State will save €645m on its welfare budget through the fraud prevention and control measures made last year – This is well in excess of the €540m target.
However Social Justice Ireland claimed the €645m in savings were not solely due to the latest fraud measures.
“The most recent study conducted on this issue showed that more than three quarters of the savings came from correcting errors made by staff in calculating people’s entitlements,” said Social Justice Ireland director Dr Seán Healy.
SJI points to a study published last year, which found that only 21.1% of overpayments were due to fraud.
“There is no justification for misleading statements that present many of Ireland’s poorest and most vulnerable people as fraudsters when the facts clearly don’t support such a claim.”
The number of flu cases in Ireland doubles in a week
The HSE has said that influenza is now actively circulating, and flu cases have almost doubled in the past week.
The vaccine is available free of charge from GPs and from pharmacists
The HSE says flu cases have almost doubled in the past week and it has urged people in high-risk groups to get vaccinated.
The vaccine is available free of charge from GPs and from pharmacists for people in high-risk groups.
People who do not have medical cards or GP visit cards may have to pay a consultation fee. Immunity from the flu vaccine lasts around 12 months.
The most Stupidest’ criminal of all time jailed over botched raid in Dublin
Gary Byrne (30) left and Gardai at the scene of the robbery at the Bullion Room on Bolton Street in Dublin.
A man described by a judge as one of the “stupidest” criminals to ever come before the courts has been jailed for a botched armed robbery in Dublin
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Gary Byrne (30) left the scene of the robbery – the Bullion Room, a gold storage business on Bolton Street – with the keys to the safe, locking the shutters behind him.
His two accomplices – Ian Jordan (33) and Aidan Murphy (32) – were left trapped inside with two staff members who had been bound and gagged during the raid.
They tried unsuccessfully to escape through the ceiling tiles and to knock a hole in a wall using hammers. Fire crews eventually had to cut a hole in the shutter to free those inside.
Byrne, of Edenmore Crescent, Raheny was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury last month following an eight day trial.
He was sentenced to seven years in prison after he was found guilty of attempted robbery, possession of an imitation firearm and two counts of false imprisonment at the Bullion Room, Bolton Street, Dublin on August 10th, 2010. Byrne had denied all the charges.
Jordan of Belclare Grove, Ballymun and Murphy of Stag Park Avenue, Mitchelstown, Cork were each jailed for five years by Judge Martin Nolan earlier this year after they pleaded guilty to the same offences.
Judge Donagh McDonagh described it as “one of the most farcical cases in recent criminal history in Dublin” and said Byrne “ranks amongst the all-time stupidest criminals to come before the courts”.
He said he would give him the “benefit of his stupidity” and suspended the final two years of the sentence after acknowledging that Byrne, with his one previous conviction for assault, was “not a hardened criminal”.
“It was a well researched but indifferently planned operation. They knew the business owner’s schedule well and raided her premises at the most vulnerable time,” Judge McDonagh said.
He said he wholeheartedly agreed with the jury’s verdict and praised the “excellent work” of the gardaí and “excellent intervention” of a passer-by who realised a robbery was taking place and alerted the gardaí.
“It would be easy to consider this whole episode a farce if it were not for the fact that two innocent people were treated in this manner. As far as they were concerned, this was the real thing,” Judge McDonagh said in reference to the fact that the raiders had an imitation firearm.
“One thing is for sure his (Byrne’s) ineptitude and stupidity does not, in any way, reduce his culpability,” the judge said.
He commented that for “some unknown reason” Byrne left the premises and locked the shutters behind him, leaving his accomplices “to emerge with their hands up and surrendering themselves to gardaí” after being rescued by the fire brigade.
Det Gda Brian Quirke told Vincent Heneghan BL, prosecuting, that Byrne was effectively the getaway driver in the raid and he left Bolton Street in the blue Ford Courier van the gang had earlier arrived in.
He later abandoned the van and dumped the hard hat, high visibility jacket and purple gloves he had been wearing in a bush.
Byrne was arrested following extensive analysis of CCTV footage. His fingerprints were later found on the hard hat and he was also captured on CCTV cameras buying that hat on the morning of the robbery.
Gda Quirke said the Bullion Room has since closed down. He said the company had traded in precious metals and was not open to the general public. It usually had up to €50,000 in cash on the premises and gold to the value of €400,000 to €500,000.
The trial had heard the Bullion Room had an elaborate security system. It took two people with separate keys to open the safe and a password had to be phoned through to a security company before the vault would open.
On the morning of the incident, a female member of staff and a security guard were opening the shutters on the outside of the store. The three raiders, all dressed as builders, came up behind them and forced them inside at gunpoint.
Murphy pointed the gun at the woman and demanded one of the keys. He then threatened her and made her phone in the password.
They then tied up both staff with cable ties and put duct tape on their mouths. Murphy could not find the other key required to open the safe because Byrne had already fled, taking the keys and locking the shutters behind him.
When Murphy and Jordan realised they were locked in and could not access the safe they started “frantically searching for a way out”.
They tried to escape through the ceiling tiles and to knock a hole in a wall using hammers, all to no avail. Gardaí had been alerted by then and the raiders could hear their radios through the shutters.
The fire brigade were called and had to cut a hole in the shutter to free those inside where the men were arrested. The female member of staff pointed out to gardaí where they had hidden the gun in the ceiling tiles. It was found to be an imitation.
Further evidence is heard at trial of a Sligo man for rape of his daughter
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy.
She said that some of the alleged abuse took place in her father’s bedroom when she would go there at night because of a fear of ghosts. She said he would punch her and kick her out of the bed if she asked him to stop touching her.
She said: “I would get into my Dad’s bed because he was my Dad and I felt safe. I was young.”
She later added: “I was brainwashed by this man. He was my only parent. I had no Mum. I had no-one else to turn to. He was the only one looking after me. I did feel safe around my Dad at some stage.”
The woman told the court that her father controlled her and that she wasn’t allowed out of the house.
She told Ms Kennedy that when she became pregnant she knew the child was her father’s because she had not had sex with anyone else.
The woman agreed with defence counsel, Hugh Hartnett SC, that she withdrew a separate allegation of rape to gardaí relating to an incident in 2010 involving a former boyfriend before re-entering the complaint.
She said she could not recall making an allegation of a sexual nature against a third person.
The court heard that while the woman was living with a foster family in the north-east she reported the foster mother to gardaí and to Childlike for “emotional abuse”.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.
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