Illegal moneylender couple’s claim for welfare dismissed

A LIMERICK couple who ran an illegal, money-lending operation in the city were unsuccessful yesterday when they sought a court order to have welfare allowances paid back to them.

At Limerick Circuit Court, Judge James Donohoe, dismissed a claim by Brendan Wallace, aged 37, and his wife Patricia, aged 36, of Fernleigh, Westbury, and said there was a criminal background to the case that he had chosen to ignore. The couple wanted back payments of job seekers’ allowances for a period of 10 months.

The court heard that the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) had obtained judgments totalling more than €900,000 against the couple. The Wallaces sold two houses with a net value of more than €170,000 with an undertaking that the proceeds of the sales would go towards the judgment.

The Wallaces applied to the court to give them backdated job-seekers’ allowances for the period June 2008 to March 2009.

An officer from the CAB said a social welfare inspector prepared a report on their application for job seekers’ allowances.

The income threshold for a couple was €401 a week.

The CAB officer said the couple’s income at the time was €456 a week and this was based on the capital value of properties owned by them, less the mortgages.

The CAB, under the Social Welfare Act, refused to allow job seeker payments to the Wallaces.

The Wallaces had to sell two properties to go towards the judgement obtained by the CAB. The court heard they also had an interest in a time-share property in Portugal but they were not able to dispose of that.

At the time of the decision to disallow the Wallaces job-seekers’ allowances, no contract had been signed with the CAB in relation to the proceeds of the sale of the two houses.

Sentences of 10 months were imposed on the Wallaces three years ago when they pleaded guilty to a money-lending scam.