A Dublin woman who pleaded guilty to making fraudulent social welfare claims totalling €229,000 has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Mary Connors, 35, of Cloonmore, Tallaght, claimed unemployment benefits over a 14-year period between July 1996 and April 2010, despite having bank accounts containing significant sums.
The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told that an analysis of several accounts in her name revealed total lodgements of €1.245m between 1992 and 2010.
Withdrawals from these accounts over the same period totalled over €969,000.
Ms Connors admitted claiming benefit for her and her husband Gerry Connors while possessing two Permanent TSB bank accounts containing significant amounts of money.
The court heard that attention was initially drawn to the matter following a garda search of the Connors' home in December 2010.
A detective sergeant found a bank book in a bedroom which showed total deposits of €107,000.
He did not seize the book but passed along the information.
Detective Garda Gary Sheridan of the Criminal Assets Bureau told the court that he was assigned to examine any accounts held by Mary or Gerry Connors.
The two PTSB accounts were in Mrs Connor's maiden name of Cawley. The accounts were frozen upon discovery in early 2010.
Det Sheridan said that Mrs Connors had been "surprisingly cooperative" and had at all stages admitted to making fraudulent claims.
Mrs Connors has since returned the €229,000. It was not the State's case that the money in the accounts came from social welfare claims but that Mrs Connors had misrepresented her means.
Counsel for Mrs Connors, Ciaran Murphy said the money came from her husband's trading of cars. Det Sheridan agreed that there was evidence of this being the case.
Judge Martin Nolan said he was handing down a three-year jail sentence due to the amounts involved and the period of time over which the fraud took place.
