A 39-YEAR-OLD woman who worked at the Department of Agriculture has pleaded guilty to embezzling €100,000 from the Bank of Ireland.
Fiona Finnegan, from Sylane, Tuam, Co Galway, and her husband were deeply in debt, a defence barrister told Galway Circuit Criminal Court, and a failed property developing scheme contributed to their marriage breaking up.
He said his client was desperate, at the time she took the funds, to find money to save her business and ultimately her marriage. The pair have three children.
Evidence was given that she had convinced staff to electronically transfer money to a Turkish account before a €100,000 cheque she had written on her former, and empty, current account with AIB had been cleared.
Finnegan pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing €100,000 from the Bank of Ireland, Dublin Road, Tuam on November 22nd, 2006.
Judge Raymond Groarke said the theft had been pursUed with “calculation and vigour”.
“It ought not to have worked but for an error by some member of staff who paid out the money before the money came in,” he said.
Detective Garda Mary Burke said the woman had given her a bank draft for €100,000 made payable to Bank of Ireland yesterday morning in court.
Imposing a suspended 18-month sentence on Finnegan, the judge noted she could have paid the money back sooner and had the benefit of that for the last 3½ years.
But, the judge said, the fact that she was repaying the Bank of Ireland now had saved her from serving the prison sentence.
Defence barrister Francis Comerford said Finnegan had tried to become a property developer and at the time she desperately wanted the money transferred to her solicitor in Turkey so that she could secure a share in an apartment block.
For the defence Mr Comerford contended this was not a sophisticated way of taking money from a bank and his client was bound to be caught once the cheque did not clear.
“If the most basic procedures had been followed by the bank no money would have been paid out at all.
“This was a desperate gesture by her and it’s amazing that it produced any money at all,” the barrister said.
