A daughter of John Gilligan has claimed that £20,000 she received from him came from gambling winnings, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.
Yesterday was the first day of Ms Tracy Gilligan's appeal to have her lone parent's allowance restored, after officials stopped the payment.
"He got it from a bookie's office, he's a gambler," Ms Gilligan (25) told the court. The Department of Social Welfare alleges she has been living from the proceeds of her father's illegitimate earnings.
Ms Gilligan, of Willsbrook, Lucan, had been receiving lone parent's allowance from December 1993 to December 1996. Since that date she has been receiving a social welfare supplementary allowance worth £85.24.
The court heard she received a house and a car from her father, and that he paid for the furnishings. It was also stated that her mother bought her two mobile phones and gave her £5,000 from her own bank account, which is alleged to have held £110,000.
The court heard that an inspector from the Department of Social Welfare found that the furnishings in Ms Gilligan's Lucan home were "ill-fitting" for someone who was on supplementary social welfare payments. The court was shown cheques from the Stanley Racing group which Mr Gilligan told his daughter to lodge into her account.
She said she had no control over the money and he later took it out to pay a builder. Ms Gilligan said, in an affidavit read to the court, that she was being vilified because of her association with her father.
She also alleged that two male Social Welfare inspectors called to her house late at night and intimidated her. They had also threatened to inform schools where she worked about her family background. Ms Gilligan said she had been working as a school sports coach on a community employment scheme while she received the lone parent's allowance. She had to abandon her place on the scheme when she lost her lone parent's allowance.
She said she left home when she was 17 and had no connection with her father's business. She had informed the Department of Social Welfare that her father bought her a house in 1996.
She worked in five schools as a sports coach and would have stayed on in the community employment scheme for another two years if she had been permitted.
Ms Gilligan said she did not rely on her family for day-to-day expenses and her father had been on legal aid while he was being held in jail in England. She added that it was "none of her business" what monies her mother had received in the past and she had suffered "severe deprivation" since her lone parent's allowance was taken from her. "I live an honest lifestyle, I don't want to be on social welfare for the rest of my life," she added.
Ms Gilligan said in direct evidence that she was 17 when she moved out of home, at which time her father had served three years and eight months of a four-year sentence.
She said her father kept £20,000 in her bank account from January 9th to June 13th, 1996 but she "wasn't allowed to touch it". He told her to withdraw the money for him and left her with £600 interest which accrued on the account.
She also told the court that in 1995 a sum of between £4,000 and £5,000 was lodged into her account from her mother's account.
She agreed with prosecution counsel Ms Nuala Jackson that she had remained on in her community employment scheme for over six months after her lone parent's allowance was taken away.
Judge Elizabeth Dunne adjourned the case to January 24th.