Mother set up bank account to collect dead son’s disability

A WOMAN ‘tricked’ the Department of Social Protection into paying money into an account which she opened in the name of her teenage son, who was killed in a car crash.

Days before he died, the teenager’s application for a disability allowance had been granted, the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee, Co. Kerry, was told. And Jean Anne McCarthy, 44, a married mother of four, opened a bank account in the name of her late son Dylan – 24 days after he had been killed in the crash near Killarney, Co. Kerry, in November 2014.

She has pleaded guilty to 25 accounts of theft from the Department of Social Protection, between December 3, 2014 and May 27, 2015.

Dylan, 16, who the court heard had mental health difficulties, had been approved by the Department of Social Protection for a weekly disability allowance of €188.

On November 25, 2014, Ms McCarthy, accompanied by an unidentified young person, went to the Bank of Ireland in Tralee and opened an account for the late Dylan.

His disability allowances – to a total sum of €7,940.80 – were now paid by the Department of Social Protection into this account. Detective Garda John Alfred said the investigation began when the department received a phone call from a female who said that Dylan had gone to Australia. The department made enquiries and found that ‘he had in fact passed away on November 1’.

A warrant for a search of Ms McCarthy’s home at Cois Coille, Tralee, in February 2016 led to the seizure of her passport and driving licence – the documents used in the opening of the account for her dead son.

Questioned by gardaí, Ms McCarthy – who has no previous convictions – admitted she was the sole person responsible for cash withdrawals, but she could not remember much about opening the account.

After the tragic death of her son she was prescribed medication, and she had said her life was ‘in a haze’ and had very little recollection of opening the account.

Some €7,614 – of the €7,940 total to be repaid – has now been lodged into the client account of her solicitor to be paid to the department. Judge Thomas E O’Donnell adjourned the matter for finalisation.

‘He had in fact passed away’