A man has been sentenced to 12 months in jail for fraudulently claiming more than €18,000 from the HSE.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said he accepted that Georgian national George Gabodze (34) had saved the State the expense of a trial by his guilty plea to 21 counts of fraud but he had to mark the seriousness of the offence with a custodial sentence.
“These are very hard-won allowances,” he said. “We can barely pay for them and we have to protect them for those who are entitled to get them and we have to be covetous about them in relation to those who are not entitled to them.”
Judge Ó Donnabháin made his comments at Cork Circuit Criminal Court after Gabodze, Skehard Road, Blackrock, Cork, pleaded guilty.
Det Garda Sgt Malachy White said Gabodze had obtained a false passport in the name of Jan Kucko, a Lithuanian, and used it to claim the money which, because he was a Georgian and thus a non-EU citizen, he was not entitled to claim.
He had since married an EU citizen and wanted to repay the money.
