A former Fine Gael councillor and cathaoirleach of Cavan County Council has been jailed for two years and nine months for stealing €172,000 from a housing charity.
Seán McKiernan pleaded guilty to the theft of just over €172,000 from Navan Mental Health Housing Association in 2019 and 2020.
During a sentencing hearing, Trim Circuit Court heard that the 44-year-old used the money to pay male escorts from South America and to procure drugs, including liquid ecstasy, crystal meth and cocaine.
McKiernan, with an address at Trinity Bungalow, Virginia Road, Bailieborough in Co Cavan, pleaded guilty to nine sample charges relating to the theft, having already admitted two counts, relating to the theft.
The court heard that it related to 58 cheques, made payable to 33 individuals.
The cheques were lodged into 32 bank accounts, across 22 different braches, totalling €172,120 and ranged from €700 to €6,000.
In 2013 and 2014, McKiernan had taken over the running of the Navan Mental Health Housing Association, after its founder became ill, and assumed the role of treasurer and secretary.
The charity provided support and independence to people with mental health difficulties.
In this role, McKiernan had access to the organisation's chequebook, but cheques required a second signature from one of two other trustees.
The court heard that everything was done by cheque within the charity and that, in 2019, McKiernan visited the other directors at their homes to sign cheques because they were elderly and in ill health.
Inquiries made by the association's accountancy firm about who two cheques were made out to in March 2019 were not responded to.
Trustees had on reason to suspect wrongdoing
Detective Garda Sean Patterson, who was attached to Navan Garda Station at the time, told the court that McKiernan would ask one of the other two trustees to sign legitimate cheques, followed by a number of others.
He said that neither man had any difficulty in doing so as they believed they were being signed for charitable purposes and had no reason to suspect any wrongdoing.
Later in 2019 and 2020, the charity's accountancy firm, FLD Accounting in Navan, requested paperwork from McKiernan relating to accounts.
The paperwork was submitted in October 2020, and the court heard that the accountants were "horrified" that a large amount of cheques seemed to have been written to people with no links to the association.
The court heard that the "vast amount" of them had been made out to "mostly South American men".
When McKiernan was asked to explain, he said that they were issued to "genuine mental health cases", referred to him by the Health Service Exectutive, and they were loans that had to be repaid.
Further queries from the accountancy firm were met with no response.
In May 2021, at a meeting with the other directors, McKiernan told them that they were loans and that any money not repaid would be repaid by him.
He said there was too much money in the charity's bank account and that it needed to demonstrate spending in order to keep funding from the HSE.
When specific names were put to him at another meeting the next day, he said that the money was being used to pay landladies, rent arrears and an educational course.
The court heard that no money has been repaid in relation to this case.
Following legal advice, the Charities Regulator was notified and a complaint was made to gardaí.
Cheques paid to male escorts, garda told court
Det Gda Patterson told the sentencing hearing that he found a way of "following the money" in the case to track down who had received the cheques.
He said they were South American men and were "typically all male escorts".
The ones that made statements said they had come into contact with McKiernan via dating apps, that he had paid them for their services as escorts, as well as paying them to obtain drugs for him, including liquid ecstasy, crystal meth and cocaine.
The court heard that the men stated they met him on numerous occasions, up to ten times.
Det Gda Patterson said that, at every meeting, McKiernan was looking for the men to procure drugs for him.
He said that, in a number of the cases, McKiernan had left some of them with debts from drugs that he had ordered and not paid for.
There were also indirect payments where cheques were lodged into accounts of Irish individuals who did not know McKiernan, but had mutual acquaintances, with instructions to pay it back to him.
In one of these instances, €4600 was lodged into the account of a man visiting a brothel, without his knowledge.
He had encountered McKiernan at his apartment and a Brazilian woman known to both men provided his bank details to McKiernan.
The court heard that this man said that McKiernan came out of a bedroom and that he was naked, cocky and arrogant, offered him a crack pipe and told him that he was a senator.
In another case, €12,000 was lodged to a man's bank account.
He had been approached by an acquaintance of McKiernan to ask if his account could be used to accept cheques for his friend.
He was later instructed to pay the money into two of McKiernan's bank accounts.
The sentencing hearing was told that he was arrested on 28 March 2022 and made no comment in five separate interviews with gardaí.
The court heard that numerous texts and conversations were found on his mobile phone with people named on the cheques.
Photos and videos were also found on the phone.
Det Gda Patterson said that one video had "seemingly" been taken by McKiernan himself "showing him smoking from a crack pipe" while lying in bed with another individual "and instructing that individual to perform a sex act on him".
Prosecution counsel Kitty Perle said the case involved 58 cheques made payable to 33 individuals, that were lodged into 32 bank accounts across 23 bank branches, and involved a sum of €172,120.
Court told McKiernan has not repaid any money
A victim impact statement for Michael Finnegan, who was one of the other two trustees of the charity at the time, was read to he court.
He said that McKiernan had never repaid a penny of the money he took.
The net result of his actions, Mr Finnegan said, is that Navan Mental Health Housing Association no longer exists and an associated social club also folded.
The court that McKiernan has no previous convictions. His offending spanned a 13-month period between March 2019 and April 2020 and he was aged in his late 30s at the time.
Det Gda Patterson said he did not believe there was any real intention to make any repayment of the money but agreed that there was an acceptance of wrongdoing made to the Charities Regulator.
Defence counsel Garrett Baker told the court that his client he had been involved in local politics and was a former councillor for Bailieborough between 2007 and 2014.
He was the youngest cathaoirleach of Cavan County Council, having been appointed at 29, and served on the Fine Gael National Executive between 2002 and 2014.
Mr Baker put it to Det Gda Patterson that McKiernan was someone who has been putting his head in the sand.
He said it was recognised by his client that these were serious matters involving and egregious breach of trust.
The court heard that McKiernan has no third-level qualification. He worked with Mental Health Ireland for ten years and was involved in local politics.
He said that he had a "highly impressive start to his professional life", but this was a contrast to his personal life.
McKiernan damaged charity in 'brutal way'
Mr Baker said that McKiernan had been hit hard by losing his council seat in 2014.
His drug use began in 2016, on a sporadic basis, but by the time of his offending he had "disappeared into a haze of substance abuse" and a by-product of that was his engagement of male escorts.
Mr Baker said a large focus of that engagement, if not more, was the drug side of things.
The court heard that McKiernan had engaged with a drug counsellor and had made good progress but there have been occasional relapses.
The court was also given detail from a psychological report which said that he had depression and outlined how a physiological condition that affected his sexual functioning appeared to have contributed greatly to his mental stress into adolescence and adulthood.
A letter from McKiernan was also read to the court, expressing sadness, shame and regret, adding that he had damaged a charity he loved in a "brutal way".
He said the shame had been "paralysing" for him.
McKiernan made an offer to the court that pensions he will have access to when he turns 50 could be made available to the charity.
Mr Baker asked the court to take his client's personal circumstances into account and the fact he has no previous convictions.
He said that McKiernan had "suffered seismic reputational damage", which was self-inflicted, and there was "no universe in which he could re-engage with local politics" and that "any prospect of continuing a career in that area is effectively stone dead".
Judge Jonathan Dunphy said the offer of paying money when he reached his 50s was not a viable option.
The gravity of the offence and the harm done placed the offending on the mid range of the scale, the judge said.
He added that the guilty plea was valuable as he sentenced McKiernan to three years and nine months, with 12 months suspended.
A request was made to the court on behalf of McKiernan that he be given a few days to get his affairs in order.
However, Judge Dunphy denied this application.
He said that the request was "yet another example of burying his head in the sand" and there was "absolutely no way" he was prepared to do that.
He remanded McKiernan in custody immediately.
