The former general manager of the Irish Whiskey Museum has claimed to the Workplace Relations Commission that she was falsely accused of stealing and was called a “common thief” by her estranged husband, a founding partner in the popular tourist attraction.
Nicola McDonnell says she was left with no choice but to quit due to her former husband’s behaviour and has made a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act against Irish Whiskey Museum Ltd.
Keith McDonnell said that his former wife’s claim is “entirely financially driven”.
The company does not agree that her employment ended in dismissal and maintains that she resigned voluntarily in November 2021 after seeking redundancy.
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But Mr McDonnell admits that he can’t recall whether he transferred money to Ms McDonnell in the amount of the agreed redundancy payment.
Opening a hearing into the claim on Tueday, Workplace Relations Commission adjudicating officer Roger McGrath told the parties he did not want to hear “personal” matters raised which were not relevant to the employment law dispute.
Mrs McDonnell said she moved out and left her husband over “irreconcilable differences” three weeks before the first pandemic lockdown in March 2020, which would see the museum closed for the next two years.
She carried on with her duties remotely and said she and her husband were “still getting on” at first.
Then at an emergency meeting of the museum’s board in June 2020, she said she was asked what plans she had for reopening – but that when she asked Mr McDonnell what money was available she was told it was none of her business.
“I believe the respondent [Mr McDonnell] wanted me to fail,” she said.
“I asked Nicola to come to me with a budget. All she could do was ask me how much money I’d got,” Mr McDonnell said later in the hearing, adding that he took a business decision not to open the museum in 2020 or 2021.
From July 2020 to October 2021, Mrs McDonnell said she was working on a project to renovate the museum and upgrade its exhibition with a €200,000 Fáilte Ireland grant.
She said Mr McDonnell told her in August 2020 that the locks on the premises had been changed. If she wanted access she would have to inform him and be accompanied by a second person, she said.
“People had been told I couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be left alone,” she said. “To add insult to injury I found out later that the locks hadn’t been changed at all.
“I felt ridiculed [that] I had to ask for access into the building. I was the face of the Irish Whiskey Museum. I was the person interviewed on Prime Time, in Business Plus. I was out to network to promote the museum,” she said.
In September 2020, Mrs McDonnell was making arrangements to send whiskeys to businesspeople attending an international conference remotely, with some as far afield as Japan and Costa Rica.
She said Mr McDonnell was “badgering” her for information on the deliveries and that when she told him the courier firm had not yet provided the details, her husband locked her out of her work emails.
“The respondent said he’d call the guards,” Mrs McDonnell said, adding that he called her a “common thief” and alleged she “stole whiskey”.
“I refused to give the whiskey back until he let me back into my emails. I actually had to send him a solicitor’s letter to get him to put my email back,” she said.
In his evidence, Mr McDonnell disputed the sequence of events in respect of the whiskey parcels.
He said he had given Mrs McDonnell access to the distillery to get the whiskey and asked how it would be paid for and who was paying for it – but that no answer was forthcoming even after asking five or six times.
“I could only presume from this it was going into someone else’s bank account but not the museum’s,” he said.
He said the complainant refused to give back the whiskey and that he told her he would change the password on her email address if she didn’t return it, and did so.
He said finally he told her he would call the gardaí and it was after this that she “reluctantly brought the whiskey back in”.
In 2021 Mrs McDonnell said she was still not being paid by the museum and was receiving HAP – but that her husband threatened her with an “official warning” for not attending an online trade show.
She said she was not in receipt of any maintenance from Mr McDonnell at the time and the warning left her “really stressed and really anxious”.
“I’m on my own with three kids, on HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) , with my savings depleted,” she said.
She said she was “at a loss” about making arrangements to reopen the museum that summer when Mr McDonnell would not meet her with one of the directors of the firm, she claimed.
Mr McDonnell said he did not want to air “personal” matters in the presence of an investor in the firm.
“I still stayed in there. I just couldn’t see myself being in the museum,” she said.
“In August 2021 it became more overt,” she said.
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She said Mr McDonnell sent her an email that month stating: “Social Welfare would be very interested about why I wasn’t looking for alternative work.”
She said she sought redundancy from the company in October that year and that Mr McDonnell had agreed to pay a sum of €5,928.
She also submitted her complaint form to the Workplace Relations Commission under the Unfair Dismissals Act at the same time, she said – with Mr McDonnell then failing to make the agreed redundancy payment after receiving notice of the complaint.
Mr McDonnell said his solicitor’s advice at the time was that an employee “can’t go for unfair dismissal and claim redundancy”.
He said dealing with a family member at work was “very different” to dealing with an unrelated employee, adding: “Sometimes they get away with stuff.”
“We obviously weren’t getting on but I thought we’d be able to come up with some type of plan. She done a very good job in there as general manager; I’ve never denied that. The reality is we just couldn’t work with each other,” he said.
He said his wife’s claim was “entirely financially-driven to line her pocket with money”.
Mr McGrath noted the complainant’s evidence that she had outstanding holiday pay and pay in lieu of notice, but not the agreed redundancy payment, and asked Mr McDonnell if he had paid.
“I’ll have to get back to you – off the top of my head I can’t recall,” Mr McDonnell replied.
“You should have checked this. I presume a businessman like yourself would know if a payment like that would have been made. It’s really unacceptable that you wouldn’t know basic facts like that,” Mr McGrath said.
“I am categorically saying I never received it,” Mrs McDonnell said.
Mr McGrath thanked the parties for how they had approached the hearing and said he would issue his decision in due course.
