Latest news with #unfairdismissal
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Ex-Clare TD tells court she cannot pay off €6,500 WRC debt as she has no income
Former Independent Clare TD Violet Anne Wynne told a court that she currently has no income to pay off a €6,500 debt from a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) award against her. At Ennis District Court, Ms Wynne said: 'I am currently unemployed so I don't have an income at this point in time'. Advertisement Ms Wynne was appearing in court concerning a Determination Order that her former constituency office worker Fiona Smyth secured last December in court concerning a then unpaid €11,500 unfair dismissal award made by the WRC. The Determination Order matter was re-entered as the solicitor for Ms Smyth, Daragh Hassett, told the court that Ms Wynne has paid over only €5,000 of the €11,500, leaving €6,500 outstanding. In court last December, Ms Wynne said she would pay down the debt from her Dáil termination payment. Judge Alec Gabbett warned Ms Wynne on Friday in court that non-payment 'becomes a criminal sanction as it is an offence to disobey a court order'. Advertisement In court on Friday, Ms Wynne said: 'I know that when we were here the last day that I hoped to make the commitment to make the payment in full.' Ms Wynne said that at the time it was her understanding 'that I would be able to draw some of my pension payment and that is how I made the partial payment in the first instance'. Judge Gabbett said to her 'you said that you were getting a lump sum on retirement from Dáil Eireann?' Ms Wynne said 'as it transpires they changed the pension scheme for new TDs elected in 2020'. Advertisement 'It was, I suppose, crossed wires where it wasn't fully outlined to me,' she told the court. Mr Hassett said that it was open to Ms Wynne to make the outstanding €6,500 in instalments. In response, the mother of six said she was 'not in a position to make any commitment here today'. Asked by Judge Gabbett whether she could make payments on a weekly or monthly basis, Ms Wynne said not currently but that may change in the very near future. Advertisement Ms Wynne said she is unemployed at the moment and her partner is also off work due to illness. She said her partner's epilepsy seizures have returned and he has been referred for further treatment to find out why they have returned. Ms Wynne said the seizures have returned since May 17th 'and he hasn't been able to work either so we have no income coming into our household'. Judge Gabbett asked: 'Not even social welfare?' Advertisement In response, Ms Wynne said: 'No - none of that has been explored at this point.' Mr Hassett asked that Ms Wynne file a statement of means to the court for an adjourned date. He said: 'I am none the wiser after hearing what she has had to say about how she lives day to day.' Judge Gabbet commented: 'Neither am I." Mr Hassett said: 'You have been told by Ms Wynne that there is nothing coming into the house – I find that hard to believe and I would ask that she file a statement of means.' Judge Gabbett directed that the statement of means be provided including bank statements. THh judge adjourned the case to July 11th and told Ms Wynne: 'I would rather not go the enforcement route.' Last August, the WRC ordered Ms Wynne to pay the €11,500 after finding that Ms Smyth was unfairly dismissed by Ms Wynne. Ms Wynne – who received a TD's annual salary of €113,679 – lost her seat in the November general election in Clare, receiving only 310 first preference votes as an Independent candidate. In the 2020 general election she topped the poll as a Sinn Féin candidate.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Bar manager accused of ‘defrauding' patrons with service charges wins €8,000 for unfair dismissal
A bar manager who denied accusations that he was 'defrauding' the patrons of a Dublin hotel by tacking on a 10 per cent service charge to tables that weren't meant to pay it has won €8,000 for unfair dismissal. Devendrasingh 'Ryan' Boodhun told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) last year the accusation made against him by the management of the Schoolhouse Hotel on Northumberland Road, Dublin 4, was 'unfounded and untrue'. An adjudicator has found Mr Boodhun's dismissal on 4 July 2023 was 'procedurally unfair', but that the business 'acted reasonably' when it ended his employment. The WRC heard in December last year that the hotel's policy was to add a service charge of 10 per cent to bills given to tables with eight patrons or more, but that this would be taken off a bill if the party objected to it. READ MORE A former general manager at the hotel, Geoffrey Cronin, gave evidence that other staff reported to him that Mr Boodhun was putting tips on customers' bills without their knowledge. He said it first came up in June 2023 when he was asked to rectify a bill error at the end of a shift and discovered that the wrong table had been closed off. 'What was paid by the guest was more than the bill was,' he said. 'That's when we started going back to look for more,' he added. He said the practice was that the 10 per cent service charge would get 'taken out, placed into a jar, and distributed' to kitchen staff and those working front-of-house. The 10 per cent had to be added on the till before printing the bill, he added. Mr Boodhun's representative, Ken O'Connor, put it to Mr Cronin that when he had looked for advice on the matter from the hotel's owner, Karen O'Flaherty, she had advised him to have an 'informal' conversation with the complainant. Mr Cronin accepted that Ms O'Flaherty told him in an email: 'The main issue is the perception that we are stealing from the customer and that the team feel they too can follow this procedure if the manager can do it. What message does he think this sends?' Continuing to quote from the email, Mr O'Connor said Ms O'Flaherty then gave a 'fairly damning instruction' to Mr Cronin to the effect that whether Mr Boodhun's response was to deny knowledge of the rule, deny doing it at all or say it only happened occasionally, that 'any reply is unacceptable'. Mr O'Connor said there was 'an analysis that he's basically defrauding customers' in the email. 'The other team members had come to me saying Ryan had instructed them to apply service charges to tables. Other accusations came to me against Ryan ... I acted upon it,' Mr Cronin said. Ms O'Flaherty said she and her husband, the owners of the hotel, would have been aware that any abuse of the service charge 'could have had major implications for the business'. She denied giving Mr Cronin a 'direction' in regard to how the matter should be handled. Human resources consultant Sean Stokes gave evidence of his role in an investigation process which concluded that Mr Boodhun was 'fully aware he was implementing the service charge wrong'. The company's position was that Mr Boodhun was 'fraudulently taking money from customers, causing us to lose faith in him as a manager'. Having been dismissed on a finding of gross misconduct, Mr Boodhun was offered an appeal to Ms O'Flaherty, who upheld the decision to dismiss, the tribunal heard. Mr Boodhun told the tribunal he was simply told that he was facing 'serious allegations' before being suspended on 22 June 2023 and spent a weekend 'in the dark' before any mention of the service charge claim was made. Addressing what he said to the company during the investigation process, he said: 'My point was, it's basically, for eight-and-under tables, if a party of four comes in ... they've had a good decent service, starters, mains, desserts, they can say: 'Is a service charge included in that? No? Add 10 per cent'' 'This happens everywhere in the hospitality business,' he said. He said the investigator, Mr Stokes, replied that this 'doesn't usually happen' and that it was more usual for customers to offer to 'round it up'. 'I argued that wasn't the case,' Mr Boodhun said. Cross-examining Mr Boodhun, the company's representative before the WRC, Graham Bailey, asked how he thought the 'inappropriate' taking of tips outside of a company's policy could 'potentially impact on a brand's reputation'. Mr Boodhun agreed it would 'probably tarnish the image' of any business. In her decision, adjudicator Orla Jones noted that 'additional matters' were raised for the first time with the worker during the disciplinary meeting and that there was 'significant cross contamination' between those responsible in the company for the different stages of the investigation. She concluded Mr Boodhun's dismissal was 'procedurally unfair' and awarded him €8,000 as redress under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Highly-paid executives sacked by boss who asked them had they been 'tickling each other's b*****ks' while major project plunged £4m into the red win unfair dismissal case
Two high-paid construction executives who oversaw a major project that plummeted to a loss of £4 million have won an unfair dismissal case after their furious boss asked if they had been 'tickling each other's b*****ks'. Donal Coppinger and John McInerney were sacked on the spot by angry Jason Carey when they revealed the costs for their major project had sky-rocketed, a tribunal heard. CEO Mr Carey believed the project was on course to make £3.3 million - but in fact the numbers showed a £7 million 'swing' and there was an expected loss of £4 million. Civil engineering boss Mr Carey 'lost his temper' when he was told the news during a meeting and asked the pair of senior executives: 'What have you two been doing for the last 12 months? Tickling each other's b*****ks?' Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney - who earned £120,000 and £145,000 respectively at the construction firm - were then told to 'get out of my sight and leave today'. An employment tribunal has now ruled their dismissal was unfair on technical grounds because they were sacked on the spot without a proper investigation into their alleged misconduct. But it also ruled that neither of them will win any compensation because of their 'extremely serious failures' over finances meaning there was a '100% chance' that they would have been dismissed anyway if due process had been followed. Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney launched their unfair dismissal case against their former employer Careys, a civil engineering and construction contractor. A second claim of wrongful dismissal from both men was dismissed. The hearing in central London was told Mr Coppinger was a site surveyor who worked his way up to become a Regional Commercial Manager. Mr McInerney was a project manager who later became a Regional Director. The pair were responsible for overseeing a project named the 'Riverside Waste to Energy plant' in South East London. The project had a tender cap of £39 milliion and Careys hoped to generate profit of £4.9 million. Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney took over responsibility of the project in 2023 and it was heard it was already 'hugely behind schedule from a commercial point of view'. By 2024, documents showed that due to rising costs the projected profit had slumped to £3.3 million. However, there was 'discrepancies' in the finances that went unnoticed and unacted upon by the pair. After May 2024 it was found the two execs became aware that costs had soared. The men blamed not noticing it on a colleague who left that month, claiming he had been in charge of finances. The tribunal's judgement said: 'Ultimately [Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney] discovered that the project was very seriously off-track and over-budget. 'Contrary to the position as stated in the Contract Review documents of an expected profit margin of c.£3.3m, the reality was an expected loss of c.£4.m, a 'swing' of over £7m.' In June 2024 a meeting was called with the company's top bosses including Mr Carey. The report said: 'Mr Carey asked, in effect, what the overall position was in terms of the likely costs/loss on the project and Mr Coppinger stated that as things stood it was approximately a £7.3m movement due to increased costs. 'It was agreed that following this confirmation Mr Carey told Mr Coppinger that he did not need to continue presenting his slides. 'Mr Carey then said "what the f***" and "how was this possible/how could this happen".' According to the judgment, Mr Carey called Mr Coppinger a 'c**t' and then said 'you c**t, I always knew you were dodgy, shifty and untrustworthy' while pointing his finger at Mr Coppinger. Then, Mr Carey said: 'What have you two been doing for the last 12 months? Tickling each other's b*****ks?' He is then said to have immediately sacked them, telling them: 'I'm not going to go as hard on you as I would like to, you are still young men, hopefully there will be lessons for you to learn from this mess, but you will not be learning those lessons under Carey's roof. 'The best thing for you to do is get your stuff, get out of my sight and leave today. I won't be speaking you again about this, the next contact will be through HR.' The tribunal heard that eventually costs for the project soared to over £14 million. The two men won their unfair dismissal claim as Employment Judge Kara Loraine said there should have been an investigation into their conduct for it to have been a fair process. But, Judge Loraine said they will not be awarded compensation. There was 'substantial evidence that they had seriously failed in their management of the project', the judge said. Judge Loraine added: 'I find that they failed to scrutinise the financial reporting on the Riverside project in accordance with the responsibilities of their respective roles and that from at least February 2024, those failures were grossly negligent. 'I find this because [their] evidence was that they knew the financial reporting in relation to the Riverside project was inaccurate from the outset of their involvement with it and knew that it was a complex project with a high degree of risk. 'The scale of their failure was both long-standing, over a period of many months and extreme in the sense that they failed to recognise and act on a misreporting of financial figures that was there to be seen in the sum of many millions of pounds (and ultimately found to be over £14m). 'That is an extremely serious failure.'
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Construction execs who lost £4m accused of ‘tickling each other's b------s'
Two construction executives were asked if they had been 'tickling each other's b------s' by their boss after their project made a £4 million loss. Donal Coppinger and John McInerney were sacked on the spot by Jason Carey, the group chief executive of the civil engineering and construction contractor Careys, when they revealed their costs had skyrocketed, an employment tribunal heard. Mr Carey had believed the project was on course to make £3.3 million but learnt it was actually expecting a £4 million loss. The civil engineering boss then 'lost his temper' and asked his senior executives: 'What have you two been doing for the last 12 months? Tickling each other's b------s?' Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney – who earned £120,000 and £145,000 respectively – were told: 'Get out of my sight and leave today.' Now, the pair have won an unfair dismissal case after a judge ruled their sacking was unfair as there had been no proper investigation. However, they were told they would be awarded no compensation from Careys because of their 'extremely serious failures' over company finances. The hearing in central London was told the pair were overseeing the Riverside Waste to Energy plant in South East London. The project, which they took over in 2023, had a tender cap of £39 million and Careys hoped to generate a profit of £4.9 million. However, by May 2024, they realised costs had soared, but blamed a colleague who had left that month to have been in charge of finances. In June 2024, a meeting was called with the company's top bosses, including Mr Carey. The CEO asked for an update on final figures, to which Mr Coppinger stated that, as things stood, it was approximately a £7.3 million negative swing from the target profit due to increased costs. The tribunal heard he was told he did not need to continue presenting his slides. 'Dodgy, shifty and untrustworthy' Mr Carey then said: 'What the f---?' He asked: 'How was this possible... how could this happen?' Mr Carey called Mr Coppinger a 'c---' and then said, 'I always knew you were dodgy, shifty and untrustworthy' while pointing his finger at him. He then made the remark about ticking each other's b------s. The pair were immediately sacked and told that the next contact would be through HR. The tribunal was told the costs eventually soared to over £14 million. The two men won their unfair dismissal claim as Employment Judge Kara Loraine said there should have been an investigation for it to have been a fair process. But, Judge Loraine said they will not be awarded compensation as a result of their 'grossly negligent' failure to scrutinise the project's finances.
BreakingNews.ie
5 days ago
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Court sets aside three days for hearing of Elon Musk's X appeal against record €550,131 award
The Labour Court has set aside three days at the end of next month to hear Elon Musk's X appeal against a ruling that it must pay out an Irish record unfair dismissal award of €550,131 to a former executive. In the ruling last August, Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Adjudicator, Michael MacNamee found that Twitter International UC - since renamed X Internet Unlimited Company- unfairly dismissed the company's former Director Source to Pay, Gary Rooney in December 2022 after he failed to respond to Elon Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email. Advertisement Mr Rooney has yet to receive any money as the case is before the Labour Court on appeal from Twitter International UC. On Tuesday, solicitor for Mr Rooney, Barry Kenny of Kenny Sullivan Solicitors in Bray, confirmed that the case 'is listed for hearing in the Labour Court on July 29th for three days'. Mr Kenny said, 'My client is anxious to put all this all behind him.' He said: 'The WRC determined that X's treatment of him as a long-standing and loyal employee amounted to an unfair dismissal. Mr Rooney is anxious that the Labour Court will affirm this decision.' Advertisement He said: 'Mr Rooney is also hopeful that the claim under the Payment of Wages Act and his loss of income arising due to the fact that he was unfairly dismissed is also affirmed.' Mr Kenny said: 'It is open to the Labour Court to increase or reduce sums awarded in the WRC as it will be a De Novo hearing.' He said that 'X have advised that they intend to call at least three witnesses, some or all of them may be giving evidence remotely from the USA. He said: 'Mr Rooney is the only witness in his own case. ' Advertisement At the WRC, Twitter International UC fully contested Mr Rooney's claim over five days of hearing, contending that he had resigned voluntarily. In his findings, Mr MacNamee found that Mr Rooney was dismissed because he did not click 'yes' to Elon Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email on November 16th 2022 and for that reason alone. On November 16th 2022, Mr Rooney and the Twitter workforce received an email from Mr Musk who said: 'to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing a grade.[....] 'If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below.' Advertisement After Mr Rooney opted not to click 'yes' on the link, three days later, on November 19th, 2022, Mr Rooney received a further company email which stated that it is 'to acknowledge your decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer'. On November 26th 2022, Mr Rooney - with the company since 2013 - emailed his employer to outline 'that at no time have I indicated to Twitter that I am resigning my position, nor have I seen any separation agreement, let alone accepted one'. In evidence, Mr Rooney told the WRC that prior to the change of ownership, he loved his job. On receiving Mr Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email, Mr Rooney said his first reaction was disbelief and he was initially afraid even to open it for fear that it was spam or malware. Advertisement Twitter International UC's Senior Director of Human Resources, Ms. Lauren Wegman, told the hearing that Mr Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email was sent to 270 employees in Ireland, which was the balance of workers not affected by redundancies, and 235 clicked 'yes'. In relation to the remaining 35 employees, Ms. Wegman said, 'We accepted their resignations'. Ireland Pay cap of €500,000 at AIB and PTSB removed, Finan... Read More Ms Wegman said the mood amongst workers at the time was mixed with some excited about 'Twitter 2.0' while others were more negative and wanted out of the company. The record €550,131 award was made up of Mr Rooney's remuneration losses of €350,131 from January 2023 to May 2024 and estimated future remuneration losses of €200,000. The remuneration losses were based on Mr Rooney's Twitter remuneration of €323,560 made up of €151,225 in pay and €172,335 in deferred cash consideration. Mr Rooney secured a new role with an employer in the banking sector in September 2023 on total remuneration of €129,897.
