Employees at Inishowen firm made more than €65,000 in false Covid-19 claims

Dozens of employees at an Inishowen-based company exploited a loophole in a Government illness benefit scheme to make more than €65,000 in false claims.

Investigators from the Inishowen Special Investigation Unit of the Department of Social Protection uncovered the false claims made by workers from across the border for Enhanced Illness Benefit, which was introduced on a temporary basis as a public health measure in response to Covid-19.

The payment was available to employees or self-employed people who are unable to work due to a diagnosis of Covid-19 or an instruction by a doctor to self-isolate or restrict their movements.

The employees used a National Health Service (NHS) website to produce a certificate of self-isolation which they printed off and submitted to the department to make their claims.

The probe began after department staff spotted an unusual increase in such claims from employees of the one company who lived over the border in Derry. 

A total of 34 employees applied for and were awarded the Enhanced Illness Benefit Payment on various occasions between March 2020 and December 2021.

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Some of the employees submitted as many as eight fraudulent claims. Payments were made in good faith, based on what they had stated on their forms.

Inspectors believe the fraud came about as a result of one employee of the company having first discovered that there was no requirement to involve a GP or any medical assessment when obtaining a self-isolation note, which was automatically produced when personal details were entered into an online form.

The false claims ranged from €291.67 to €4,841.67 and totalled €65,113.48.

Prosecutions were pursued in cases that had a cut-off point of an overpayment value of €1,000.

The court heard the company the employees worked for cooperated fully with the investigation.

Eight employees appeared at Buncrana District Court on Tuesday, and all pleaded guilty to making false claims. 

Evidence was given in court by senior Inspectors with the Department of Social Protection’s Special Investigations Unit, Morgan Mooney and Eunan McElwaine. Some of the false claims have been repaid while in other cases repayment plans are in place.

Judge Éiteáin Cunningham issued fines of €250 in some of the cases.

Commenting on one of the cases, the judge said she was not impressed. “The Government went out of their way to assist families in need over the pandemic period and I am really not impressed.”