A circuit court judge has said a school principal convicted of deception and fraud of up to €450,000 appeared to have a Robin Hood-style thought process at play.
Helen O’Gorman pleaded guilty in May to a charge of dishonestly obtaining funding from the Department of Education on dates between September 2012 and June 2013.
Judge Keenan Johnson was commenting before he convicted the 57-year-old under the Probation of Offenders Act at Longford Circuit Court.
The court was told that in the period between 2013 and 2015 Ms O'Gorman inflated the number of pupils on the school roll at St Mary's National School in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford.
A school had just been built after a merger of the girls and boys national school in the town and Ms O'Gorman overstated the number of pupils by 66 in 2012/2013, 95 in 2013/2014 and 94 in 2014/2015.
The court heard told the deception and fraud came to light as a result of the actions of a whistleblower who contacted gardaí.
A full investigation was carried out and it was discovered that Ms O'Gorman made no personal gain whatsoever.
Her salary was not increased at any stage as a result of what happened but the Department of Education was out of pocket to the tune of €276,316 in the overpayment of salaries for additional teachers who had been employed.
During the same period, grants for DEIS school, capitation and other schemes had also been drawn down to the effect of €137,878.
Judge Johnson said he accepted that Ms O'Gorman had made no personal benefit whatsoever, but the schoolchildren had received swimming lessons and membership of the ‘Rent-a-book’ scheme during the same period.
The judge said it was a most unusual case where clearly the school principal had not benefited, but he said it was a serious case of deception and fraud of the public purse.
He noted that Ms O'Gorman was under considerable stress at the time and said he was aware of the enormously onerous difficulties of the job of being a school principal.
He said she had dedicated her life to education and the welfare of her students.
He noted that she had resigned early due to ill health and will therefore suffer significant loss of her pension as a result.
