{"id":482787,"date":"2026-06-04T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482787\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:58:10","slug":"man-received-e40000-injury-payout-while-fraudulently-claiming-pup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482787\/","title":{"rendered":"Man received \u20ac40,000 injury payout while fraudulently claiming PUP"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man in Donegal fraudulently claimed almost \u20ac30,000 in pandemic unemployment payments.<\/p>\n

Despite Marcin Karkowski later received \u20ac40,000 compensation in relation to a workplace accident that left him unable to work, none of the amount outstanding to the State has been repaid.<\/p>\n

A prosecution against Karkowski, a 35-year-old with an address at Lawnsdale, Ballybofey, was taken by the Department of Social Protection at Letterkenny District Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard that an overpayment of \u20ac29,080 was made to Karkowski between July, 2020 and May, 2022. That sum remains outstanding in its entirety.<\/p>\n

Karkowski also received the \u20ac40,000 payout in 2023 having sustained a workplace injury in 2019.<\/p>\n

A guilty plea was tendered by Karkowski, who was aided in court by an interpreter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An official from the special investigations unit of the Department of Social Protection outlined the case to the court.<\/p>\n

Karkowski submitted an online claim for a Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) on July 31, 2020 and said in his application that this was the last date on which he had worked.<\/p>\n

Karkowski was awarded a payment and in July 2021 he confirmed his ongoing eligibility in respect of the PUP. The PUP was a means tested payment for people who lost their employment due to the restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

The investigation later established that Karkowski had not been employed since June 2019, several months before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

While Karkowski claimed to have been working at a south Donegal company, the company disclosed to the Department of Social Protection that he was only employed from April, 2019 until June, 2019.<\/p>\n

Karkowski had a work-related incident in June, 2019 and did not work thereafter.<\/p>\n

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Karkowski – who has no previous convictions – attended for interview and was in the company of his partner and four children. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy to conduct the interview with them all present,\u201d the inspector said.<\/p>\n

While Karkowski was sent two invites to attend for interviews under caution he did not attend these appointments.<\/p>\n

The defendant\u2019s solicitor, Mr Patsy Gallagher, said that \u201cunhelpful friends\u201d advised his client that he was entitled to these payments.<\/p>\n

Mr Gallagher told the court that his client had a fall and suffered head and back injuries. He said the PUP payments at the centre of the case were obtained \u201cdue to desperation to support his family\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Gallagher acknowledged that because his client was on sick leave and not in employment at the time, he was not entitled to claim the PUP.<\/p>\n

The inspector confirmed that Karkowski disclosed the \u20ac40,000 payment regarding his injury in an interview.<\/p>\n

Mr Gallagher said his client is a 35-year-old man who has been forthright and made \u201ca full and frank disclosure\u201d. As a result of the injury suffered by his client, community service was not an option, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a serious breach,\u201d Judge Emile Daly said. \u201cThe Pandemic Unemployment Payment was introduced at a time when the country was in an alert situation and it was needed to deal with people who were out of work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stopped working and made the application over a year after he stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Daly fined Karkowski \u20ac800 in respect of three separate charges. He was fined a total of \u20ac2,400 and given six months to pay.<\/p>\n

Judge Daly, who had earlier noted that a prison sentence was available as to the court, described the case as \u201cextraordinary\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cHe received \u20ac40,000 and at the same time he was defrauding the Social Welfare budget to the tune of \u20ac29,000.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man in Donegal fraudulently claimed almost \u20ac30,000 in pandemic unemployment payments. Despite Marcin Karkowski later received \u20ac40,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-482787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}