A 50-year-old pizza worker, Svitlana Karabudak, is accused of stealing more than €21,000 in bogus benefit payments to fund weight-loss surgery in Turkey, according to reports. The allegations say she used a friend’s Public Services Card to claim one-parent family and child benefit payments at the Bundoran Post Office. The reporting states that the friend later returned to Ukraine, and that the Public Services Card she had provided was then used by Karabudak to make the claims.
Irish Mirror reports that the case involves an order or direction to “accelerate repayments,” indicating that repayment is a key part of the proceedings. The Irish Times describes the payment scheme in more detail, identifying the types of benefits claimed and the location where the claims were made.
Together, the sources indicate that the central issue is the alleged misuse of an identity-linked public services card to obtain benefit payments while seeking medical treatment abroad. The reports do not provide additional confirmed details in the excerpts about the court’s final outcome.
