Scrutiny of the bounty brings end to Corkman's 33-year gamble on parents' pensions
Gambling is at the heart of 59-year-old Don O’Callaghan’s story. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision
Lifelong gambler Don O’Callaghan took the biggest punt of his life in November 1987.
When he walked into the post office on that occasion he did not know if it would pay off. But he walked out with a good return. It would go on to be one of the most extraordinary accumulators that any Irish gambler would ever carry out.
It continued to accumulate and multiply for the next 33 years until he had taken in no less than €527,440. It was only when he tried to claim “a bonus prize” that it all unravelled.
Because the fact of the matter was that this was not just gambling, it was defrauding the State by claiming the pensions on behalf of his mother and father. The crux was that his parents were both dead as he pocketed their joint pensions for 33 years.
Gambling is at the heart of 59-year-old Don O’Callaghan’s story. He gambled by trying to pull it off on the first day in November 1987. He gambled by keeping it going week after week – or as it was latterly, fortnight after fortnight.
He gambled by trying to claim the €2,540 President’s bounty for his father who had – on paper – reached the age of 100. And even with the money that he took from this fraud, he literally gambled that too.
The picture that emerged as O’Callaghan was jailed for three-and-a-half years - for what was described as the biggest welfare fraud in the history of the State – was of a man going around in ever-decreasing circles. For sure, there was evidence of some foreign travel.
But this was largely to Thailand where he has a son. He travelled there a few times a year and visited him. And he also paid some maintenance to his son’s mother. But apart from these Bangkok visits, Don O’Callaghan’s life had become local in the extreme.
He continued to live in his late parents’ home at Churchfield Green in Cork city. He collected his pension at the GPO at the corner of Oliver Plunkett Street and Pembroke Street every fortnight. He went to the same bookies – Paddy Powers on Pembroke Street – and gambled there.
His days were described as going to the bookies at noon each day and staying there until 6pm. There were no signs that he had been living a lavish lifestyle – no flash car, no big luxuries.
When he was arrested at the end of this extraordinary fraud it was outside Cork’s GPO. He had €961.60 in his pocket, which represented the joint pension for his mother and father.
When a warrant was obtained to search his house they didn’t find a massive quantity of cash. There was €9,800 and no more.
Since then, O’Callaghan was on bail pending sentence this week. For the past four months he has not placed a bet. He has been engaging in counselling and trying to deal with his lifelong gambling addiction.
But even now at this late stage, he said there is not a day when it is not on his mind. There isn’t a day when he doesn’t want to go out and place a bet.
It was the 24-year-old gambler who came up with this idea to try his luck with his father’s pension. The young man was alone in his father’s house in the aftermath of his death in November 1987. He was going through some of his dad’s papers.
His mother Eileen had died seven years previously. What caught his eye was the late Donald O’Callaghan’s pension book. He thought about it. What if…? Then he acted on it.
He walked into the post office and after indicating that he was there to collect his father’s pension he was successful and continued it every week until he was caught in October 2020.
But there was a twist in this extraordinary story.
When Don O’Callaghan went to claim his father’s pension he did not realise at first that it was actually a joint pension. It turned out that the late Donald O’Callaghan had claimed his and his wife’s pension even though she had died seven years earlier.
So no sooner had Don O’Callaghan started his gamble on claiming his father’s pension than he was ‘winning’ on the double.
The defendant’s senior counsel Ray Boland certainly painted a picture of his client not ‘winning’ at all but that this pernicious addiction had put him on a losing streak that lasted his whole life and poisoned everything.
He lost jobs. He lost relationships. And this week he lost his liberty. And in an odd way, it is the first time that he is free. Free of gambling. Mr Boland said that Don O’Callaghan was not thrown into the depths of despair when he was caught.
“He feels a huge sense of relief.” Mr Boland said. "After he affirmed signed pleas of guilty, Paddy Powers served him with notice that they would not take any more bets from him, that they took problem gambling very seriously.
“I won’t comment any further on that.”
Now that Don O’Callaghan is facing into a relatively long spell in prison he hopes to face his demons in terms of tackling his gambling addiction for once and for all.
“He wants to be a meaningful parent to his son in Thailand,” Mr Boland said.
Apart from the fraud of claiming the pensions every week or fortnight, the defendant had to engage in the fraudulent creation of documentary evidence to back up his claim. The most dramatic involved supplying a picture of his late father that was required by the Department of Social Protection.
He first sent an old picture of his father to the Department but the quality of the snap was deemed to be so poor that it was rejected and another picture was requested. O’Callaghan then went to an elderly man he knew, photographed him and affixed that to the PPS application for the PPS card, purporting that the elderly man in the picture was his father.
Detective Garda Mick Nagle who investigated the case said: “It transpires that this photograph was taken by Don O’Callaghan of an elderly man whom he knew, who was of a similar age to what his father Donald O’Callaghan would have been.
"He had no other suitable photograph of his father and took the photograph of this male in order to ensure that the fraud continued.
“With nothing to compare it to and no reason to suspect anything untoward, this photograph was accepted by the department and in February 2015, a public services card was issued to Donald O’Callaghan by post, bearing the photograph of this unknown elderly male.
"The public services card was located during the search of Don O’Callaghan’s home.”
Detective Garda Nagle said the initial application to collect his father’s pension required a form to be signed by his father. An examination of this from the welfare file made it clear that the 24-year-old had to have forged the signature for his deceased father at that time.
“The fraud was continued throughout the years with the completion of various documents. In 1990, he submitted a fuel allowance application to the department listing the occupants of the address as himself and both of his parents.
“The department conducted postal checks on the pension claims over the years. There were three continued eligibility certificates sent to Donald O’Callaghan at 4 Churchfield Green.
“These certs are sent to verify the current information of a person receiving a claim and if no response is received from the individual, it would result in an examination of the claim.
“There was one cert sent to 4 Churchfield Green in 1996, one in 2013 and one in 2017. These certificates were all returned completed and signed, appearing to have been submitted by Donald O’Callaghan but, in fact, completed and signed by the defendant.
“Don O’Callaghan was for many years an unofficial collection agent for the pension. An Post began to have these collection agents made official through the completion of an application form by the claimant, to nominate someone to collect their payment.
“In 2009 an authority to appoint an agent form was completed by the agent to collect the pension payment on behalf of his father. The reason stated was that Donald O’Callaghan was no longer able to walk to the post office to collect the payment,” Det. Garda Nagle said.
When Don O’Callaghan tried it first at the age of 24, he got away with it. So for more than three decades he did it again and again. He did it approximately 1,700 times – bagging over half a million euro.
It was not until the President’s bounty was offered to Donald O’Callaghan for supposedly reaching the age of 100 that suspicions were finally raised and it was discovered that he had been dead for 33 years and his son had been claiming his pension.
This was when, what Det. Garda Nagle called “the largest and longest-running case of welfare fraud in the history of the State”, was finally rumbled. But even with suspicions, it proved impossible to locate death certificates for the accused man’s parents.
The resourceful detective decided to search graveyards in Cork and did not stop until he found headstones for Don O’Callaghan’s parents. He could finally prove that Don O’Callaghan’s father, Donald O’Callaghan died in 1987 and his mother, Eileen, died seven years before that.
“In September 2020, I located the grave of Eileen O’Callaghan at Tory Top Road cemetery and the following week I located the grave of Donald O’Callaghan at Douglas cemetery.
"Donald died 34 years ago in November 1987, aged 68, and his wife Eileen O’Callaghan died 43 years ago in March 1979, aged 57,” the detective said.
Don O’Callaghan was arrested after making what would be his last claim for the joint fortnightly pension for his deceased parents at the GPO. This last payment of €961.60 was confiscated from him that morning on October 9, 2020.
That was the day the lifelong gambler did not make it back to the bookies.
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