Mother fined €250 over €7k welfare crime

A DUBLIN woman has been been fined €250 for getting €7,000 in children’s allowance payments after she failed to tell social welfare authorities she was living in Australia.

Mother-of-two Gillian O’Gorman, 41, was prosecuted by the Department of Social Protection on a charge of failing to notify that she was absent from the State during which she continued to be paid for two years.

Dublin District Court heard that she first applied for children’s allowance in 2006. Her application form also had a warning that the claimant must live in the State. In November 2007, she and her husband, Paul O’Connor, whom she is now separated from, moved to Australia, but authorities were not informed and payments continued until 2009. O’Gorman of Killiney Towers, Killiney, Dublin, returned to Ireland in 2012. Her current children’s allowance has been reduced to repay the department, which is still owed €2,472.