Mr Colman Byrne, a former president of the Union of Students in Ireland, has been awarded £3,150 damages against the Irish branch manager of the Meningitis Research Foundation, a UK-based charity which dismissed him in June 1999.
Mr Conor Bowman, counsel for Mr Byrne, of Balnagowan, Palmerston Park, Dublin, told Judge Kevin Haugh in Dublin Circuit Civil Court that Mr Byrne had been sacked for alleged gross misconduct on the grounds that he had falsified a claim for time off in lieu of hours worked.
Mr Byrne said he had been allowed three days compassionate leave to visit his father who had been seriously injured in an accident in California and had been allowed a further three days time in lieu to facilitate a six-day visit.
He claimed that, while he was owed more time than he had claimed, he had been sloppy about the particulars of the time owed.
Mr Byrne said he had not attended a disciplinary hearing because he had been refused a legal adviser. He had been further similarly denied legal representation at an appeal which he attended.
He told Mr Tom Mallon, counsel for the foundation, that his expenses claims as president of the Union of Students in Ireland had been central to a high-profile inquiry which had been reported in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post.
Ms Denise Vaughan, director of the foundation, told Mr Mallon that Mr Byrne had been found to have claimed time off for hours he had not worked.
She denied she had been "out to get" Mr Byrne or had set him up because of a clash of personalities or that she had brought charges of falsification of hours against him because of his behaviour towards women staff.
Ms Vaughan said that in relation to an accommodation problem at a staff conference in Bristol, Mr Byrne had asked that a junior female member of his Irish staff be accommodated in his hotel room since they had shared a room before while at college together. She said the foundation would consider such a thing as inappropriate behaviour and had spoken to both Mr Byrne and the girl about it.
She had told the girl that should she wish to take the matter further the foundation would support her. The girl had made no complaint about Mr Byrne's suggestion, which she had considered "too off the wall to be serious".
Judge Haugh, awarding Mr Byrne £3,150 and costs, said he had been seriously disadvantaged in not having been allowed legal representation at both the disciplinary hearing and the appeal.