A 59-year-old man who claimed over €500,000 in pension payments for his dead parents has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, with the final year suspended.
Don O'Callaghan, of Churchfield Green, Churchfield in Cork city, was sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today having pleaded guilty last October to 73 charges of theft and forgery totalling €527,000 over 33 years, from 1987.
Judge Helen Boyle said that by his deliberate actions, the pension pool had been deprived of this money - and the State coffers - for people who needed that protection.
Judge Boyle noted that O'Callaghan had a chronic gambling addiction and said that "despite the large amount of money you got, you effectively gambled it away every day".
In sentencing O'Callaghan, she said the crime was at the upper end of the scale given the amount of money taken.
Aggravating factors in the case included that he had filed out forms to continue the deception over the years, had lied to a Department of Social Protection inspector about his father being alive and the sheer length of time it went on for.
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However, she took into account that he had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity avoiding a lengthy trial and saving the State expense, and had fully co-operated with gardaí, accepting his guilt from the outset.
She also noted "significant detective work" was necessary to uncover the fraud, which included Garda Michael Nagle visiting the city's cemeteries until he found the graves of O'Callaghan's parents.
The court heard previously that the fraud - described as one of the largest and longest running known welfare frauds in the State's history - was rumbled when O'Callaghan tried to claim the Centenarian Bounty for his dead father, Donald, who died in 1987.
