A insurance agent who defrauded three insurance companies of €2.5 million was today sentenced to four years in jail.
Noel Fitzpatrick (42) set up a bogus company and was paid the money in commission for a pension scheme he set up on behalf of his non-existent employees.
He spent the €1.5 million profit he made on an extravagant lifestyle which included: €153,000 on cars; €105,000 on cash withdrawals; €100,000 on credit cards, €54,000 on jewellery, €46,000 on Druids Glen golf club membership and €11,000 on a stereo system and other home equipment.
At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Catherine Delahunt said the only appropriate sentence was a custodial one.
"You embarked on these enterprises solely to fund a lavish lifestyle and in doing so you engaged in extensive duplicity and cunning," she said.
"You are now as a result of your actions virtually unemployable in the financial world in which you once worked," she said.
"On your own admission, you ruined not only yourself but your family's life as well."
Fitzpatrick, from St Gabriel's, Johnstown Road, Cabinteely, Co Dublin, had pleaded guilty to seven charges of falsely pretending various people were applicants for pension schemes at Canada Life Ireland, Friends First Ireland and New Ireland Assurance on dates between July 2000 and July 2001.
He also pleaded guilty to a charge of securing an IR£400,000 loan from Anglo-Irish Bank and a charge of supplying false information to the company's office.
Judge Delahunt imposed a four year prison sentence on the charge of falsely obtaining the IR£400,000 loan and also imposed a series of sentences ranging from one to four years on the other counts, with some of them partly suspended for good behaviour.
She ruled that all the sentences would run concurrently and would be backdated to include the year that Fitzpatrick had already spent in custody.
PA