Social welfare recipient banked €210,000

A mother-of-three, whose social welfare has been cut off by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), banked more than €210,000 in a Credit Union account over the last 13 years, a judge has been told today.

Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Matthew Deery, heard that Martina Dardis had also failed to disclose credits and debits worth tens of thousands in her Credit Union and in two other bank accounts.

Dardis denied in the Circuit Civil Court that between 2001 and 2009 she had bought and traded in five cars, including two top of the range Lexus cars and a BMW, which, overall, would have cost her about €50,000. She said they had been loaned to her by relatives and friends.

A barrister for CAB said that when making claims firstly for Social Welfare Carer’s Allowance and then for Single Parents Allowance. Dardis had made no mention about the bank accounts or their contents.

Dardis, of Patrick Heeney House, Summerhill, Dublin, and previously of Aldborough Court, North Strand, Dublin, told the court she had an account with the North William Street Parish Credit Union in North Strand Road and accounts with the Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB.

She told Judge Deery a lot of the money she had lodged and withdrawn from the accounts had included a compensation award of €36,000 to her partner, James McAuley, by the Residential Institution Redress Board and gifts from McAuley’s late grandmother and her own late father.

Dealings with different banks were revealed to the court when Dardis yesterday launched an appeal to overturn CAB’s decision to disallow her a lone parent’s allowance and a carer’s allowance for looking after her partner, who had a serious heart condition.

She said a lot of money taken from her bank accounts and a joint account went to buy drugs for her partner who had a drug problem.

The court heard evidence from the Forensic Accountancy Department of CAB that Dardis had not made a full and frank disclosure of her means when she applied for welfare aid.

She had made no appeal when CAB had frozen and seized more than €20,000 in her Credit Union account.

The court heard she had also failed to appeal a Revenue tax assessment of more than €116,000 and still owed the Revenue almost €98,000.

In the absence of an explanation about her dealings she had failed to prove that she was not in receipt of income from an undeclared unknown source.

Dardis said she intended to appeal the tax assessment and the seizure of her shares in the Credit Union.

According to a forensic accountant there had been receipts and credits totalling €211,550 into her credit union account between 1998 and 2011 and payments out and debits of €197,630.

Judge Deery has reserved judgment on Dardis’s appeals.