A Garda sergeant was this afternoon jailed for a year for his part in a fake passports scam.
Sgt Finbarr Hickey (42) from Dundalk, Co Louth, pleaded guilty to four charges - three of forging passport application forms between March and December 1995 and one of taking a forged application form to the passport office in Dublin in February of the same year.
The Special Criminal Court heard that Sgt Hickey was commended for capturing an armed robber in Dundalk in 1984, that his father retired from the Garda with the rank of chief superintendent and that his grandfather was a founding member of the force.
Sentencing him to 12 months' imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently, Mr Justice Frederick Morris said: "He has betrayed his position of trust as a member of the Garda Síochána and has betrayed the body to which the public must and is entitled to depend upon."
Det Insp John O'Mahony told the court Hickey signed and stamped passport application forms over a 10-month period at Hackballscross Garda Station where he was sergeant.
He said Hickey had severe personal problems, his marriage had broken up and he was drinking heavily when he was approached by a former senior colleague, who asked him to do him a favour.
Det Insp O'Mahony said Hickey had no association with illegal or subversive groups. He said two of the forged passport applications were in the names of living persons who had not applied for passports. The other two were in the names of children who had died in infancy.
The Garda had traced three of the four forged passport holders. One was before the courts and the other two were outside the jurisdiction but Garda inquiries are continuing.
Mr O'Mahony said Hickey was suspended when he was arrested in September 1998 and would now lose his job.
Mr Justice Morris said the court accepted that by giving way to temptation Hickey had betrayed his family tradition as members of the Garda Síochána.