A former director of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) had his 13-year-old son drive a State-owned tractor on public roads at night as he was not acting rationally due to the shock of being suspended from his job, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has heard.
A trade union representative said Patrick Gorman had, at the time, just been “ambushed” with a series of anonymous allegations, none of which were upheld after investigation, and that a “campaign” against him had “succeeded”. The WRC heard Mr Gorman had close to 40 years of service with the organisation.
In his complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against IFI, Mr Gorman said his suspension quickly became the talk of the town and that his family had been “destroyed” by false rumours about him being sacked due to fraud.
The allegations of corruption made against him in the protected disclosure were not upheld by investigators appointed by IFI, but the State agency maintains it was justified in dismissing Mr Gorman for the unauthorised use of a tractor and a boat while suspended pending investigation.
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Mr Gorman said he was “completely oblivious” to an anonymous letter making allegations that he was making personal use of an IFI tractor until he arrived to meet his line manager at the agency’s hatchery in Cong.0
To his surprise, IFI chief executive Francis O’Donnell was present and told him about the disclosure and letter being received. Mr O’Donnell told him he was suspended and gave him a letter to that effect, he said.
Mr Gorman said the tractor in question was 25-years-old and had only been kept in service for seasonal work for so long because he had housed it for the agency’s use for years at his home.
‘Shaking’
He said Mr O’Donnell told him IFI needed the tractor back that night and that he was “shaking” and “in bits” at this stage.
Mr Gorman said he drove home from the meeting to find a local landowner waiting to report suspicious boat activity on Lough Mask, and developed a suspicion that eel poachers might be at work before going out again to deliver the tractor.
“I started the tractor. I knew [my son] was a capable, and very, very capable tractor driver,” Mr Gorman said, adding that the boy was “13 going on 14″.
“I told him to drive the tractor behind me to Cong, very, very slowly, with the hazard lights on. He did everything I asked him.”
The complainant said he was not acting rationally because of the shock of the suspension, and resorted to having his son drive the tractor as he had been instructed not to contact other IFI staff, including his nephew and brother, who lived locally.
“In hindsight, I wouldn’t have put my son doing it,” he added.
Mr Gorman and his son then brought a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) belonging to IFI from the hatchery to his home, which he took out alone on Lough Mask the following morning to investigate his suspicions about poaching.
Allegations not upheld
Although none of the allegations made against Mr Gorman in the anonymous letter were upheld, the movements of the tractor and the boat after his suspension were also examined in the investigation and disciplinary process which followed, and taken as cause to dismiss him with eight weeks’ notice.
The dismissal was upheld on appeal last October, bringing Mr Gorman’s 37½ years of service to IFI and a predecessor organisation to an end, the tribunal heard.
IFI operations director Barry Fox, one of the appeal officers, said Mr Gorman had committed “a major breach of health and safety” by taking the RHIB out alone on February 2nd, but that alone would not have been cause for dismissal.
He said the use of the tractor by a 13-year-old on a public road was a breach of internal health and safety rules and, more seriously, a breach of road traffic legislation.
Under cross-examination, Mr Gorman accepted some sanction was appropriate for the incidents, but said he believed dismissal with notice was “disproportionate”.
Not unfair
In a closing submission, Tiernan Lowey BL, for IFI, said the dismissal was not unfair and the agency was resisting reinstatement as a possible remedy in the event of the WRC making a finding to the contrary.
“It’s hard to think of a more serious matter than permitting an underage person to drive a tractor on a public highway at nighttime, presumably when it was dark in February at 8pm,” he added.
Marie O’Connor, of the Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre, said IFI had breached its procedures when its chief executive went beyond the “initial assessment” set out in its protected disclosures policy and questioned Mr Gorman on the tractor.
“This felt like a witch hunt – we all know protected disclosures can be used as a weapon. He’s held his hands up to say he did act in a totally irrational manner on those dates… [but] two days don’t define the man,” she said.
“He was dismissed over an error of judgment following a campaign against him and his family. It’s abundantly clear that has succeeded.”
She told WRC adjudicator David James Murphy: “Everyone through the community and IFI thinks Mr Gorman was dismissed for, you said yourself, corruption. That should be part of the consideration.”
Mr Murphy closed the hearing said he would give his decision in writing to the parties in due course.
