A Circuit Court judge has called on disgraced Galway county councillor Michael Fahy to “act with honour” and resign his seat on Galway County Council, following his conviction today for obtaining €7,055 from the local authority by false pretences.
"Fraud by a public representative attacks the very essence of our democracy and erodes public trust in our elected representatives. While the court does not have the power to disqualify you as a councillor, I hope you act with honour and resign your seat following your conviction by a jury of your peers," Judge White said to the accused at Galway Circuit Criminal Court this afternoon.
Judge White then sentenced Cllr Fahy to 12 months in prison, suspending the final four months. The judge said it was the court's decision that the accused had already served the custodial portion of the remaining sentence and he told Cllr Fahy he was "free to go".
He imposed a €30,000 fine on the accused and gave him three months to pay, warning him that he would serve three months in prison in default of payment. The four-month part of the sentence was suspended on condition the accused enter into a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years.
In passing sentence, Judge White said an aggravating aspect of the case was "the serious breach of trust" displayed by Cllr Fahy, when as an elected representative he had set out to defraud the very body to which he had been elected and had caused very serious difficulties for the officials of that body who had acted in good
faith with him.
Leave to appeal the sentence was refused.
It was understood tonight that Cllr Fahy would not quit his seat on Galway County Council.
Cllr Fahy had denied five charges involving fraud, false accounting and attempting to make a gain for himself or cause a loss by deception to the Council, during his six-day trial before a jury of nine men and three women in Galway.
The charges centred on the disputed erection of 1.6km of fencing on Cllr Fahy's farm by Byrne Fencing, for which invoices had allegedly been submitted for payment to Galway Co Council in 2002 and 2003.
In summing up the evidence, State prosecutor Conor Fahy BL had told the jury that while a council-approved Community Involvement Scheme was widening a pubic road leading to the accused man's home and had contracted Byrne Fencing to erect fencing along the public road, the accused had got the contractor to erect 1,629 metres of fencing and five gates on his farm, while the approved CIS Council scheme had only erected 877m of fencing along the public road.
"It was a case of the tail wagging the dog," he said.
The barrister told the jury: "What is staring you in the face is a case of dishonesty on a grand scale in his dealings with Galway Co Council by an elected official of that institution."
He said the accused man's only defence for his actions was some sort of "ex-post hoc contract in his own mind" that he had some sort of agreement with the council's engineers that he could have a mile of fencing erected on his private farm and that the council would pay for it in exchange for stone taken from his farm during the road widening scheme.
The barrister said no such agreement had ever been reached with the Council and the councillor's actions were "utterly dishonest". He said the accused had engaged in a web of deceit for what could only be described as "greed and abuse of power as an elected representative".
Mr Fahy said the accused knew the "game was up" by October, 2003 when he was told the Council would not pay invoices submitted for €7,523.91 and he immediately apologised to the engineering staff and paid the amount himself directly to Byrne Fencing.
Defence counsel, Bernard Madden SC, asked the jury to remember his client had already served seven months in prison while awaiting an appeal of a 12-month prison sentence imposed on him at his first trial last year.
The accused had been convicted by a jury at the Circuit Criminal Court in March of last year, following a two-week trial, of seven charges brought under various sections of the Larceny, Theft and Fraud Offences Act.
At the time Judge Raymond Groarke imposed a 12-month prison sentence along with a €75,000 fine on Cllr Fahy.
The jury had been sent to a hotel last night and had spent just over six hours deliberating before returning an 11 to one majority verdict of guilty yesterday on the first charge, which related to the accused obtaining by false pretences €7,055.15 for Byrne Fencing from Galway Co Council in 2002.
The jury found Cllr Fahy not guilty of the remaining four charges, two of which related to an alleged attempt by him to defraud the Council of €7,523.91 in June 2003 by pretending that an invoice for that amount was for road widening works carried out under a Community Involvement Scheme, which had never been approved by the council for 2003, and by submitting the same invoice in August 2003 for the same amount and purpose.
The jury also found him not guilty of the two remaining charges of false accounting by producing the above two
invoices to the council, knowing they were misleading, false or deceptive.