Dozens at Co Donegal firm exploited Covid-19 illness benefit payments

Dozens of workers at a large Co Donegal company exploited a benefits loophole to print off their own Covid-19 certs and defraud more than €65,000 in illegal payments from the Department of Social Protection.

The 34 employees made dozens of illegal enhanced illness benefit claims while still turning up for work and claiming their full salaries.

Eight of the employees, all living across the Border in Co Derry, appeared before Buncrana District Court where they pleaded guilty to the fraud.

There were Caolan Cassidy of Abbeyfields, Dungiven; Gareth Nicell of Rathmore Crescent, Creggan; Declan McKinney of Foyle Road, Derry; Gary Maguire of Linsfort Drive, Creggan; Jason Doherty of The Meadows, Derry; Damon Holden of Malin Gardens, Derry; Eamon Breslin of Carnhill, Derry; and Mark McGahey of Rathlin Drive, Foylehill Estate, Derry.

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All of the employees living in the North were able to claim the Covid payments after realising they did not need to have any proof of medical intervention for their claims. Instead, all they had to do was to log onto a National Health Service (NHS) website and print off a certificate of self-isolation.

[ Coronavirus: Lack of checks led to ‘significant’ ineligible PUP claims during pandemic ]

Dozens of the certs were then sent by up to 34 employees on various occasions between March 2020 and December 2021 to the department to claim the illness payment. This allowed the employees to receive further payments under the scheme of €350 per week while they were already being paid their normal wages by their unsuspecting employer.

Normally, illness benefit is operated by the Department of Social Protection to support people who cannot work in the short term because they are sick or ill. But the enhanced payment was introduced on a temporary basis as a public health measure in response to Covid-19. Rates of payments were substantially higher (€350 per week as opposed to €208) and on a par with the pandemic unemployment payment (PUP).

[ Some 66,000 healthcare workers still waiting on Covid-19 recognition payment ]

The payments were available to employees and the self-employed who had to be absent from work in the short term because they had Covid-19 or they had been told to isolate on medical grounds.

Word of the scam spread when one employee realised he did not have to show any legitimate medical proof of isolation and told fellow workers of the loophole during their breaks.

The fraud only came to light when staff in the control section of the illness benefit scheme spotted an unusual increase in such claims from individual employees of the company, sparking an investigation by inspectors in the Inishowen Special Investigation Unit.

According to department investigators, the company for which the employees worked knew nothing of the scam and co-operated fully with the investigation.

Judge Éiteáin Cunningham accepted the pleas and issued fines to the offenders after hearing various payment plans to pay back the money to the department were now in place.

The judge said: “I’m really not impressed. The Government went out of their way to assist families in need over the pandemic period and I’m really not impressed with this.”

The illegal claims ranged from as little as €291.67 to as much as €4,841.67 which amounted to total overpayments of €65,113.48.

The department decided to consider prosecutions in the 34 cases and to have a cut-off point at an overpayment value of €1,000. This left 15 employees, some of whom have since left their roles after either being dismissed or resigning.