Dead woman’s pension withdrawn by brother

PENSION payments of thousands of euro were drawn down in the name of an elderly Mayo woman who lay dead in a bed for many months in the house she shared with her brother and sister, it has emerged.

An investigation has been launched by the Department of Social Welfare into how the brother of Agnes Lyons was able to cash the weekly 144 allowance without any written authorisation from her.

The results of a post mortem should reveal how long 70-year-old Ms Lyons was dead before her body was finally discovered in the bedroom of the house in Aughamore, Co Mayo, last Monday. She lived in the three bedroom bungalow with her sister Mary Ellen, 66, and 74-year-old brother Michael, better known as Sonny.