{"id":489686,"date":"2026-02-19T08:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/489686\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T08:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:02:08","slug":"former-cycling-ireland-official-given-suspended-sentence-for-attempted-deception-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/489686\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Cycling Ireland official given suspended sentence for attempted deception \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Cycling Ireland<\/a> events officer has been given an 18-month suspended sentence for producing fake quotations that were later submitted in an attempt to secure a sports grant.<\/p>\n

Garry Nugent (51), of Drumrrer Lane, Coaslisland, Co Tyrone<\/a>, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> to two charges of attempting to deceive the Department of Transport<\/a> on dates between March and June 2020. He has no previous convictions.<\/p>\n

Det Garda<\/a> Nevan Hartley told prosecution barrister Simon Donagh that Cycling Ireland had been advised that grants of \u20ac100,000 and \u20ac75,000 were available to it and would be lost if not claimed.<\/p>\n

Cycling Ireland intended to combine the grants to apply for tandem bicycles which would have been used in the Paralympic Games<\/a>. The organisation had been given permission to combine the two grants and was required to provide three quotations to support the application.<\/p>\n

The detective said Nugent was responsible for providing two false quotations in relation to this application and a further false quotation in relation to another grant for \u20ac52,100. The latter grant was intended to be used for timing equipment.<\/p>\n

The false quotations were uploaded by another person, along with a genuine quotation, to support the applications. The court heard Cycling Ireland ultimately did not receive the grants.<\/p>\n

The detective said Cycling Ireland was under time pressure to submit the applications and there was a \u201cnarrow window\u201d during which the tandem bicycles could be manufactured.<\/p>\n

He said that due to the tight timeline, and the fact \u201call of this was happening\u201d during the pandemic, \u201cthe wrong decision was made to submit each fake quotation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The detective said although there was no loss to the State, Cycling Ireland suffered reputational damage and lost a sponsor.<\/p>\n

He agreed with defence barrister Cathal McGreal that Nugent was \u201can ordinary decent man who was put under specific pressure\u201d and provided the false quotations \u201cto satisfy a tender requirement\u201d. It was also accepted that Nugent did not gain personally or financially due to his actions.<\/p>\n

The detective agreed with the defence when it was put to him that he had no concerns about Nugent ever coming back before the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be shocked if he did,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

McGreal said his client was a married man with two teenage children. He lost his job with Cycling Ireland but is working again.<\/p>\n

Judge Orla Crowe said she accepted the evidence that the grants \u201cwere going to disappear if they were not applied for\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said the offending occurred in \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d during the first Covid-19 lockdown and there was \u201ca certain urgency perceived\u201d.<\/p>\n

Crowe accepted that Nugent admitted his involvement from the outset, had apologised and had not benefited financially from the offending.<\/p>\n

She noted that he \u201cplayed an active role\u201d and was \u201cnot entitled to try and deceive\u201d the grant provider as he had done. <\/p>\n

The judge set a headline sentence of three years, but imposed a sentence of 18 months suspended in full on strict conditions including that Nugent be of good behaviour for three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Cycling Ireland events officer has been given an 18-month suspended sentence for producing fake quotations that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[23154,64,63,6664,784,247515,16474,145675,85,63616],"class_list":{"0":"post-489686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-circuit-court","12":"tag-cycling","13":"tag-cycling-ireland","14":"tag-department-of-transport","15":"tag-paralympic-games","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tyrone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}