Manager ‘believed to have stolen €200k’

A Youthreach manager spared jail because he admitted to stealing €40,000 is believed to have defrauded his centre of at least five times that amount.

James “Shay” Brady, aged 56, of Abbey Park View, Clane, Co Kildare, was given a three-year suspended sentence last month after he was said to have helped gardaí to investigate his crimes.

The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told he volunteered to provide an unprecedented level of assistance to investigators.

According to reports of his sentencing, Mr Brady was said to have made full admissions and had arranged to repay €40,000 which he said he stole over the course of a seven-year period.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring said this was an exceptional level of co-operation and it spared him a jail term.

However, internal correspondence has said the sums involved were believed to have been between five and eight times the amount he told gardaí he stole.

An insurance claim for €202,000 has already been paid out to cover his crimes. A separate, internal inquiryby staff reported that €338,000 had been misappropriated and some money was given to five trainees who were not entitled to receive payments.

The insurance pay-out followed lengthy negotiations between the old County Dublin VEC and the Irish Public Bodies’ insurance company.

The new Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board has told the Department of Education the €40,000 figure was based on an amount Mr Brady volunteered in his statements to gardaí.

Its CEO, Paddy Lavelle, said gardaí alone would have had the power to build a full picture of his activities.

“Only the gardaí would be in a position to uncover the full nature of the sums involved, as the inquiry would have involved a historical trawl of trainees and their personal bank account details,” Mr Lavelle said.

Mr Brady did not respond to a request for comment.

During his time as manager of Lucan Youthreach, Mr Brady used its credit card to buy groceries.

He also used a fake invoice book to charge the youthreach project for non-existent purchases.

Mr Lavelle told the department, in a letter released under the Freedom of Information Act, that Mr Brady’s crimes directly affected young people who would have expected to benefit from the Lucan Youthreach service.

“There was a betrayal of trust by an employee of long standing who had been held in high regard until then,” said Mr Lavelle.

“There was, and is, a sense of anger and abhorrence that the Youthreach trainees were denied opportunities and resources that would otherwise have been available to them had this money not been misappropriated.”

In her ruling, Judge Ring said Mr Brady was living a double life. “Financial crisis has brought an increase in the number of cases coming before us of people with no previous convictions, unlikely to offend again, who had been considered pillars of the community, but who committed theft,” she said.