Polish man flew in to Cork to get disability payments

A Polish man fraudulently claimed disability payments amounting to €42,500 by flying back from Poland to sign periodically for the payments which were sent directly to his bank account.

He was given a suspended jail term yesterday.

Judge David Riordan imposed a two-and-a-half-year sentence suspended in its entirety. One of the conditions of the suspension of the jail term was that the accused would leave Ireland within three days.

Stanislav Szczesny of Park Owen, Quaker Road, Cork, who pleaded guilty to sample counts related to the fraudulent claiming of disability benefit over a three-year period from 2012, indicated that he would have no difficulty with the requirement to leave the jurisdiction.

Sinead Behan, defending, said the accused had re-paid a total of €31,000.

Detective Garda Kevin Heffernan said there was an arrangement in place where the Department of Social Protection was receiving €50 per month from a €350 a month life pension to which Stanislav Szczesny was entitled. Although it would take up to 16 more years to clear the remaining €10,500, the Department of Social Protection would be fully repaid.

Det Garda Heffernan said gardaí received information that the accused was living outside of Ireland and returning periodically to claim a disability benefit. This was on top of the pension to which he was entitled no matter where he lived. This disability benefit required him to live in Ireland and was assessed on the basis of €188 for him, €124 in respect of his wife and €30 for his daughter. It turned out that his wife and daughter were living in Poland and he was spending most of his time with them and returning to Ireland for the purpose of signing on for the payment.

Det Gda Heffernan said gardaí secured flight manifests from Ryanair which showed he was flying in and out of Ireland around the times of signing on requirements.

The detective said that for instance in one period measured at 483 days the accused only spent 34 days in Ireland. That was despite the fact that he was in continuous receipt of the weekly payments that required him to be living in Ireland on a permanent basis.

Ms Behan said he sustained a back injury where he fractured a vertebrae and displaced two others — an injury described as life-changing and which put him out of work permanently.

Det Gda Heffernan said he and his colleague attended a High Court case in Galway where Szczesny was the plaintiff against the plastering company which employed him at the time of his back injury. Details of the welfare scam emerged in the course of that trial even though gardaí had already become aware of it.

The case settled after the plaintiff gave his evidence in chief for €65,000. It was suggested yesterday during the criminal case against Szczesny that the full value of the civil case could have been a multiple of that settlement figure. The High Court judge ordered that €10,000 of the €65,000 be paid back to social welfare. That was in April of this year before the full extent of the scam was known.

Since that €10,000, he paid a further €21,000 leaving the €11,500 balance.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin remanded the accused in custody a fortnight ago when he pleaded guilty and commented at the time, “The reality is there is going to be a prison sentence in this case.”