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Convicted thief who stole €80k from charity playgroup scrubs up for new medical role

The employment of Avril O’Brien at the Orchard Medical Group’s health centre in Neilstown has caused alarm

Yesterday at 20:35

A convicted thief who stole €80,000 from a charity playgroup is now working at a Dublin medical centre.

The employment of Avril O’Brien at the Orchard Medical Group’s health centre in Neilstown has caused alarm – with one patient saying the convicted thief should not be in a position where she could potentially gain access to confidential patient information.

We photographed O’Brien, who is being sued in the High Court over the money she stole from the Loreto Playgroup in Tallaght, as she left the health centre on Wednesday afternoon.

Outlining her concerns, the patient told us: “I am absolutely horrified that she is working in a position where she could potentially gain access to patients’ personal information.

“She should not be in any role that allows her access to sensitive and personal data. I am in support of ex-convicts working to reintegrate successfully into society.

“If Ms O’Brien was working at a garden centre and the owner was aware of her background, I would not have a problem.

“I think this is a serious matter which deserves further investigation and prompt publication.”

Contacted by this newspaper, Dr. Liam Lynch, a director of the Orchard Medical Group, said he had not been made aware of any such concerns.

“To my knowledge, all of our employees are up to date in both confidentiality and appropriate vetting,” he said.

“I have had no contact from anyone expressing concerns in that regard … from any patient. We have fairly robust procedures here in place for complaints .. right across the spectrum.

“We also have fairly robust procedures in place as regards confidentiality.

“I’d be very happy to address any concerns that patient might have and I would urge them to find a way of addressing their concerns appropriately.”

Details of how O’Brien’s thefts from the Loreto Playgroup in Tallaght brought it almost to the brink of closure emerged during her sentencing hearing in 2021.

The court heard O’Brien – who had gain the trusted position of running the playgroup – splurged her stolen loot on home renovations, a mobile home in Wexford and family holidays to Florida.

The group would have been forced to shut its doors permanently were it not for the actions of its kind-hearted director Sr Teresa McCullagh, who used cash from her own pension and borrowings of €25,000 from her religious order to foot unpaid bills.

Despite the gravity of her crimes, O’Brien served only a single month of the 18-month sentence handed down by the courts before she was moved to an out-reach centre where she could come and go as she pleased.

O’Brien is now being sued as the playgroup seeks to recover its cash.

Court records seen by the Sunday World show High Court proceedings were issued against O’Brien, under the name Avril O’Brien Murphy, by the Loreto Playgroup Ltd on September 28 last year.

O’Brien is represented by Padraig O’Donovan and Company solicitors.

Speaking with the Sunday World in November last year, Sr McCullagh outlined how O’Brien gained a position of trust in the playgroup as she worked alongside her over 15 years.

“I took her on as a community employment CE worker. And she was good, hard-working and clever,” she said.

“She had good computer skills, which is important nowadays, and she went up the levels there through Fetac. So, when the position came up of Community Employment supervisor, which included running the pre-school, she got the job.”

Sr Teresa said O’Brien was being well compensated for her role, earning an average of €650 a week, and that as the years went by, they became friends.

“I was working in the same office as her so, of course, we became friends and I got to know her whole family.

“I never realised that she was going on three holidays a year. I was often up at her house and I knew there was huge amounts of money being spent on it, but she would always make excuses.”

Inevitably, because of O’Brien’s non-stop pilfering, problems began to materialise with the group’s cash-flow.

“Several times, when I was up home with my family in the North, I got a phone call from her to say there was no money to pay the wages that week,” Sr Teresa said.

Inquiries with the playgroup’s bank revealed O’Brien was regularly, and had for years, been transferring large sums into her own bank accounts while writing in the online banking notes that the money was being transferred to pay outstanding bills.

“The actual amount of money she took was €119,000,” said Sr Teresa.

Board members contributed from their own resources while Sr Teresa withdrew money from her own pension and borrowed €25,000 from her order to stave off closure.

O’Brien pleaded guilty to 11 sample counts of stealing money from the playgroup on dates between October 2013 and March 2016.

Sentencing O’Brien, Judge Martin Nolan said he accepted there was strong mitigation as outlined by defence counsel.

But, he continued, stealing from an employer “is a serious matter”, particularly in this case where the relationship was personal.

He said there was “a sense of betrayal” there, which he could understand.

He sentenced O’Brien to three years imprisonment but suspended the final 18 months of the sentence on strict conditions, including that €12,000 be transmitted to the organisation within a month.