AN ELDERLY man who fraudulently claimed almost €140,000 of a dead acquaintance’s pension for 23 years has had his sentence adjourned at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Patrick McLoughlin (65), Ballyfermot Drive, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty to 10 sample charges including forging pension vouchers and theft at Upper Ballyfermot post office between September 21st, 1984, and June 1st, 2007. He had no previous convictions.
The fraud was discovered after social welfare staff were preparing to make the “presidential centenarian bounty payment” to the man who had died whose 100th birthday would have been in April 2007.
Judge Katherine Delahunt adjourned the case to see if McLoughlin could continue repaying the debt to An Post, which has reimbursed the social welfare department out of his disability allowance and into an account to which he had no withdrawal access.
The judge had adjourned the case last July to allow for McLoughlin to attend for cancer treatment. Sgt Colm Kelly told Bernard Condon, prosecuting, in July, that an officer for social welfare called to the registered home of Gerry Donnelly to organise the presidential award.
He learned that the current owner had bought the house in 1989 and gardaí were contacted. A death certificate later showed that Mr Donnelly had died on September 17th, 1984. McLoughlin was arrested in June 2007 after gardaí viewed CCTV footage of him collecting Mr Donnelly’s pension at his local post office.
He claimed that Mr Donnelly’s son had stayed at his home and left his father’s pension book behind. McLoughlin later admitted that he stayed with Mr Donnelly shortly before he died and that he had later paid for his funeral. He said Mr Donnelly’s son had allowed him to claim the man’s pension in order to recoup the costs.
Sgt Kelly agreed with Mr Carroll that his client had arranged a scheme to repay the State after social welfare advised him of what it termed “an overpayment”.