Social worker guilty of €96k fraud

A social worker put the names of children on the official HSE list of children at risk who should never have been placed on it in order to carry out a €96,000 financial scam for herself.

Jennifer O’Driscoll of St John’s Terrace, World’s End, Kinsale, Co Cork, aged 45, used her detailed knowledge of the payment system for foster families and her position of trust within that area to steal over €96,000 between May 2008 and January 2013.

O’Driscoll has since been dismissed from her job as a HSE social worker, the court heard.

O’Driscoll appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing yesterday.

“Nine foster carers and 23 children were embroiled in this investigation. Named children were placed on the list of children at risk even though they were never in care at all,” Detective Sergeant Clodagh O’Sullivan said.

The way the fraud worked was that the social worker used her knowledge of the fostering system to generate the paper work to say that a particular child was being placed with a foster care family even though there was no such placement in fact. The relevant financial section would then unwittingly make the designated fortnightly payment to the foster family. When the payment went through, O’Driscoll contacted the family directly and said this was an incorrect payment. She always blamed a fictitious officer filling in on maternity leave saying this person had made the erroneous payment. She would always ask for the money to be refunded to her in cash and she would drive out to the home of the foster family and collect it.

If the foster carer suggested keeping the money and having the next payment, to which they were entitled, stopped, O’Driscoll would always explain that another foster family was without the payment and that she would bring it directly to them in cash.

This deception was carried out using the names of actual children but who were not in foster care and it went on in this manner for more than five years before she was eventually caught. None of the foster families ever suspected her because they trusted her because of her position.

A disciplinary issue arose in relation to the social worker and in the course of this issue there was an examination of her work and the crime was discovered.

Judge David Riordan agreed to adjourn sentencing until October 25, remarking, “There are big issues here in terms of breach of trust.”

O’Driscoll pleaded guilty to 38 charges of theft and 42 of deception. The charges refer to thefts of various sums of cash at North Lee Social Work Department, Blackpool, Cork, on dates from May 29, 2008, and January 1, 2013. The deception charges refer to deceiving or inducing a staff member at the finance section to accept as genuine a discharge from care form with the intention of making a gain for herself.

She is on bail pending sentence.