THE editor of a weekly sport supplement, published with the Evening Echo in Cork, was dismissed after his employer learned he hand borrowed money from one of his freelance reporters and failed to repay it for 10 months, an Employment Appeals Tribunal heard yesterday.
His employer, Examiner Publications Ltd, believed it affected his professional relationship with the reporter.
Mr Sean O'Sullivan is appealing against his dismissal on November 9th, 1995. He worked for the company for 17 years before being dismissed for gross misconduct and repeatedly unacceptable levels of misconduct.
He was in charge of Soccer Stadium, a weekly supplement with the Echo, and employed a Dublin-based freelance sports reporter, Ms Mary Hannigan, to provide up to six stories a week for a fixed fee of £100.
Ms Hannigan told the tribunal they occasionally met socially. Last December, when he was staying in Dublin for a match, he contacted her because he had left his wallet at home. She agreed to lend him £160 on condition he returned it within a day or two.
After some months when, despite promises, he failed to repay the money, she started legal proceedings. From that time he stopped making his regular weekly telephone call to her to discuss what stories she would send that week. She continued to supply work but noticed a drop in the amount being used.
Some time later she found her weekly fee of £100 was halved and was told by the Echo accounts department that all freelance contributions had been cut by 50 per cent because of budgetary constraints.
She was upset she had not been informed and wrote to a number of people including the Evening Echo editor, Mr Nigel O'Mahony. She also explained her personal problems with Mr O'Sullivan.
Mr O'Mahony, giving evidence, said he talked to Mr O'Sullivan as soon as he got Ms Hannigan's letter because it was a very serious matter.
"He was in a position of trust and I believed he had breached it," he said. He added that Mr O'Sullivan, at one of their meetings, admitted his personal problems with Ms Hannigan had affected his working relationship with her.
He said there were other problems with Mr O'Sullivan. These included an incident when the soccer supplement was not finished on time and delayed publication of the Evening Echo by 40 minutes. He discovered gardai had earlier arrested Mr O'Sullivan for not paying £300 in parking fines and taken him to jail.
Mr O'Mahony said that after discussing the matter with Ms Hannigan and human resources personnel in the company, and taking legal advice, he and human resources personnel met Mr O'Sullivan with his solicitor and union representative. After some hours of talks they asked Mr O'Sullivan to consider his position with a view to resigning and adjourned their meeting.
When the meeting resumed and he failed to resign they handed him a letter dismissing him.
A barrister for Mr O'Sullivan, Dr John O'Mahony, said his client denied admitting that his personal problems with Ms Hannigan affected his professional relationship with her. He objected that despite repeated requests the company had failed to provide him with copies of the letters of complaint from Ms Hannigan or details of any of the other allegations.
They eventually received some, details in a fax to Mr O'Sullivan's solicitors on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, just before the hearing began.
"My client's constitutional rights were denied him on the day he was summarily dismissed and there is an attempt to deny him his rights again here," said Dr O'Mahony.
The hearing continues today.