Nurse avoids jail for €10k children’s allowance fraud

A nurse in Dublin, who fraudulently claimed almost €10,000 in children’s allowance payments while her son and daughter were living in India, has been spared a jail sentence.

Rajini Benesh, aged 38, from India but with an address at Abbeyview, Monkstown, Co Dublin, was fined €750 after she pleaded guilty to unlawfully obtaining €9,270 in children’s allowance payments.

Joseph Maguire, prosecuting, told Judge John Brennan at Dublin District Court that Benesh did not tell the social welfare authorities that her two children were living in India.

There was one charge for failing to notify and five counts of making false declaration in which she filled out forms with false information from July 2012 until November 2015. The prosecution said her children were not in the State during that time.

The fraud was detected when the Garda National Immigration Bureau checked passports.

Mr Maguire said all the money has been repaid.

In a plea for leniency, Joe Coonan, defending, told the court that Benesh’s son had a skin pigmentation disease and had to go back to India for treatment which was too expensive in Ireland.

She was the sole income earner as her husband was a PhD student at the time. She has taken out a loan to pay back the money to the social welfare authorities.

Judge Brennan said the amount obtained was not insubstantial and went on over a long period. However, he noted she pleaded guilty, the mitigating factors, and that the money has been paid back in full. He convicted her and ordered her to pay the fine within six months.