Disgraced former solicitor Michael Lynn carries out community service in lieu of detention

Disgraced former solicitor Michael Lynn has been temporarily released from prison under a scheme that allows prisoners to carry out unpaid community service in lieu of continued detention.Lynn received a 5½-year sentence in February 2024 for stealing more than €18 million from six financial institutions during the Celtic Tiger era.Lynn has most recently served his sentence at the low security Shelton Abbey Prison in Co Wicklow. It is understood Lynn has now been released from the prison under the Community Return Scheme, an initiative co-managed by the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service.READ MOREThe scheme gives prisoners the opportunity of early and renewable temporary release and involves participants doing supervised community service instead of remaining in prison.For a prisoner to be eligible for the scheme, authorities must be satisfied they pose no threat to the community, are serving sentences of between one and eight years and have served at least 50 per cent of their sentence.In response to queries, the Irish Prison Service said it does not comment on individual prisoners.Lynn, with a previous address of Millbrook Court, Redcross, Co Wicklow, was convicted of crimes committed during the Celtic Tiger era, when he became involved in a complex maze of property deals in Ireland and abroad.After his business collapsed, he lived abroad for several years before being extradited from Brazil in 2014 to face trial. He was found guilty in December 2023 of 10 counts of theft, after a jury in an earlier trial failed to reach a verdict.Lynn challenged the severity of his sentence, but the Court of Appeal dismissed his case in May 2025.Judge John Edwards said the thefts were perpetrated “cynically, knowingly and intentionally” and Lynn’s culpability was aggravated by the breaches of trust involved in how he dealt with the banks.He noted Lynn had brought his profession “into disrepute” and had effectively “leveraged” his status as a solicitor to facilitate his crimes.He said Lynn had displayed “arrogance” and “hubris”, traces of which were evident “even to this day” in the way in which he had met this case and the suggestion that because the victims were institutions rather than individuals who may have been insured against theft and fraud, the harm done by him was somehow “less significant”.He said the trial judge was correct to approach the sentencing on the basis that there was a “high level of premeditation” on Lynn’s part in respect of the offending.The former solicitor had displayed “limited insight” into the harm done and there was no finding of “sincere remorse”, the judge said.Lynn was jailed for obtaining multiple mortgages on the same properties in a situation where banks were unaware that other institutions were also providing finance. These properties included Glenlion, Lynn’s €5.5 million home in Howth, and multiple investment properties.