Lithuanian in welfare fraud told to leave State or face jail

A COURT has given a 36-year-old man from Lithuania 48 hours to leave Ireland or face a 10-month jail term after he pleaded guilty to defrauding the social welfare system of more than €5,000 by claiming entitlements while not resident in the State.

Rolandas Undzenas, formerly of the Funshion, River Valley, Mallow, Co Cork, appeared at a special sitting of Mallow District Court after he was arrested by gardaí boarding a flight at Cork Airport bound for Gdansk in Poland.

Undzenas pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly deceiving the Irish people by signing on for social welfare payments while not resident within the State of Ireland with the intention of making gain for himself or others.

He admitted committing the offences at the social welfare office at Davis Street, Mallow, on two occasions – May 29th, 2012, and again on June 26th, 2012 – with the fraudulently claimed money totalling €5,600, the court was told.

The case came to light after the Department of Social Protection received a tip-off that Undzenas, who had come to Ireland in 2005 and was working here, was no longer resident in the State.

Gardaí from Mallow arrested Undzenas at Cork Airport on August 1st as he was about to board a flight to Gdansk.

He was brought before a special sitting of Clonakilty District Court.

Judge Tim Lucey remanded Undzenas on bail to appear at a special sitting of Mallow District Court this week where Judge Aingeal Ní Chondúin sentenced him to 10 months in jail on each of the two counts but suspended them on condition he leave the country within 48 hours.

Judge Ní Chondúin, who said that Undzenas’s behaviour in falsely claiming the payments was disgraceful, ordered that he forfeit to the State the €1,100 which gardaí found on him when they arrested him on August 1st.

The case is one of the first to come before the courts on foot of new legislation, introduced last April, which gives powers to social welfare inspectors to work at ports and airports to combat welfare fraud and abuse.