Former hurler DJ Carey targeted "a real spread of people", Prime Time reporter Paul Murphy has told Behind the Story.
Carey has been told by Judge Martin Nolan that he faces an inevitable prison sentence for defrauding people by falsely claiming he needed money for cancer treatment.
He pleaded guilty in July to ten counts of dishonestly inducing people to pay him money for cancer treatment. Eight further counts are being taken into consideration by the court.
Judge Nolan said he would impose his sentence on Monday after the court heard victim impact statements from some of those affected, including businessman Denis O'Brien.
Paul, who was in court today, told Katie and Aisling that Mr O’Brien described Carey as "cunning".
"This cuts to the core of what DJ Carey has pleaded guilty to," he said.
"It was a lot of money – it was €125,000 [and] $13,000 – so it wasn’t an insignificant sum.
"But for somebody like Denis O’Brien, obviously that is not really the key part of it – for him it was that fact that there was deceit and that his friendship had been abused.
"He mentioned that he had helped lots of other people in the past and that he had never been defrauded before."
The maximum sentence for each count faced by Carey is five years in prison.
US shutdown
Katie and Aisling also discussed the ongoing shutdown of the US government, which will see millions of people stop receiving assistance to buy essential food from Saturday.
Niall Stanage, White House columnist with The Hill, said the numbers of those who rely on food aid are bigger than most people realise.
"It’s just not fully understood internationally have many Americans are very close to the edge economically," he said.
Mr Stanage said there are many people who "have very little savings at all, are working pay check to pay check – often in more than one low-paying job".
"If you strip away food stamps, which are an important part of people’s monthly budgeting, those people are very suddenly in a very precarious situation".
On the overall shutdown, he adds: "The most dramatic effects of it haven’t really kicked in with full force".
You can listen to Behind the Story which is available on the RTÉ Radio Player.
You can also find episodes on Apple here, or on Spotify here.
