A man from Eritrea, who claimed over €5,000 in social welfare payments after submitting a false name to the International Protection Office (IPO), has been sentenced to two years in jail.
The Circuit Criminal Court heard how Nasser Hussein (35), who has residency status in the UK, came to Ireland after travelling to Dublin via Belfast as he was concerned about the financial impact of the 21 criminal convictions he had accrued there since 2005.
Judge Orla Crowe heard that when Hussein came to Ireland in 2023 he was on temporary release from prison having been sentenced for assaulting two emergency workers there.
He pleaded guilty to making a gain or causing a loss by deception contrary to Section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.
When he got to Dublin, he lived for a him in a tent beside the IPO where he said his name was Isa Muhammad Hussein in order to claim social welfare payment which he was not entitled to.
After the accused was housed in an IPAS centre in Santry, Co. Dublin Gardaí were contacted in January 2025 and asked to look into him. When Hussein was interviewed, he told Detective Garda Coyne of the National Crime Investigations Bureau, that his name was Isa Muhammed Hussein, and that he was “the son of God” and wanted to be called ‘Isa’, the Arabic word for Jesus.
Shortly after this interview, on the 11th of February 2025, he “packed up his things” and left the IPAS centre before Gardaí located him on Hardwick Street, Dublin 1.
A number of documents found in his rucksack were in the name Nasser Hussein, with the court hearing that the accused did not use any false documents to gain the social welfare payments, totalling €5,919 or €113.80 per week, or access the IPAS accommodation.
Detective Garda Coyne said that the accused has provided three different birth dates, and had attained a PPS card by filing out a “questionnaire” at the IPO where he used the false name.
His defending counsel argued that her client had come to Ireland intending to work in restaurants, but when this didn’t work out he applied for asylum to get social welfare on the advice of a friend. She said he was worried that his criminal record in the UK would affect his ability to earn money and support his wife and young child.
His convictions from the UK are 7 for robbery, 3 for assault, 1 for theft, 1 for production of an article, and 7 for possession of imitation firearms.
Judge Crowe refused the defence’s request to treat the offences as being at the lower end of the scale, saying that the accused had “made himself out to be someone who he was not” and taken money which he was not entitled to as he “had residence in the UK”.
“I don’t take a view that this is at the lower end of culpability,” she said.
The court noted that the accuse has “very serious convictions”, saying that the Gardaí were to be “commended” for the way in which they pursued the matter.
Saying that the accused was “caught red handed”, the court set a headline sentence of three years before reducing this to two years “taking due credit in relation to his circumstances”, which is to be backdated to February 2025 to give credit for time already served.