The Central Bank has warned the public about a firm run by businesswoman Catriona Carey, who is alleged to have been involved in a financial scam.

She is under investigation by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau for her alleged involvement in a racket that targeted people whose homes were about to be repossessed.

Ms Carey, an accountant who played hockey for Ireland, is alleged to have taken around €500,000 from families who were already under extreme financial pressure.

It is claimed this was used to fund a lavish lifestyle. The Central Bank said it wanted to warn the public that Careysfort Asset Estates Limited was not authorised by it to provide financial services.

It said Careysfort Asset Estates Limited is an English-registered company, and that Catriona Carey is its sole director.

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It said it believed the company was holding itself out as a business which could provide credit to a person, but that it held no authorisation from the Central Bank as a retail credit firm.

It is a criminal offence for an unauthorised firm or person to provide financial services in Ireland without such authorisation. If people deal with a firm that is not authorised by the Central Bank, they will not be eligible for compensation from the Investor Compensation Scheme, the bank said.

Ms Carey, sister of Kilkenny hurling legend DJ Carey, was the subject of an RTÉ Investigates programme in February this year.

Her business proposition was to buy people's distressed loans from their banks at a knockdown price, and then offer to sell them back to the homeowners at that vastly reduced rate, allowing them to stay in their homes.

She asked for a deposit upfront, promising that it would be paid back. Once those deposits were received by her, Ms Carey was said to have strung people along for as much as two years.

She told clients she was dealing with their lenders to buy their mortgages, but it emerged that she was not.