The woman at the centre of a lawsuit over a pyramid investment scheme said yesterday that "any fool" could have seen the risk involved as it was mathematically impossible for everyone to make the 800 per cent profit it promised.
The key to success in the Women Empowering Women scheme, which at its height involved up to an estimated 6,000 people in Ireland, was to get into it as early as possible and to get out quickly, said Ms Linda Laird, who admitted she made €20,000 before it collapsed last year.
Ms Laird, Old Bray Road, Cabinteely, Dublin, denied it was a scam and insisted that brother and sister Rose and Dermot Snedker, who are suing her for breach of contract and misrepresentation, had been made fully aware of the risks.
She blamed the collapse on their failure to bring in other people and on a welter of adverse publicity.
It was clear the risks increased the longer one was in the scheme and it was "mathematically impossible" for it to be otherwise.
"Any fool can see it is a pyramid and it can't go on forever because there is not an infinite number of people in the world," she said. "I think now it should be banned because I think it is the most horrible, disgusting scheme that ever came on the face of the earth. My family life has been destroyed and why I am not in John of God's because of it, I do not know."
At the end of a two-day hearing, Judge Michael O'Leary at Dublin District Court said he would give his judgment tomorrow week.
The court heard the Snedkers were told that for a minimum of €1,900, their investment would grow by a multiple of eight in a matter of six to eight weeks.