Governance issues at Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) were leaked and “weaponised” against its then chief executive after he suspended the then chairman’s brother from his job, the Workplace Relations Commission has heard.
Francis O’Donnell told a hearing on Tuesday that his “dream job” as chief executive of the State agency turned into “an absolute nightmare” in 2022 after he opened an investigation into allegations against the man.
O’Donnell claims he was unfairly dismissed by IFI, the State body with responsibility to protect, manage and conserve Ireland’s inland fisheries and sea angling resources. He also maintains he was penalised after making protected disclosures.
He said he was appointed initially in May 2020 as an IFI river basins district inspector on a full-time basis. He said he was appointed chief executive on a five-year contract in November 2020.
O’Donnell told his counsel Owen Keany that in January 2022, IFI’s parent department, the then Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, received a protected disclosure containing allegations about an employee.
He said this maintained the employee had had an IFI tractor at his home for a significant period of time, that an IFI fuel card had been used and that the vehicle had been driven by the man’s sons.
He said he was advised by IFI’s outside lawyers that he should suspend the employee – who was identified at the hearing as Pat Gorman, a river basin director and the brother of then IFI chairman Fintan Gorman.
He said he travelled to Cong, Co Mayo to meet Pat Gorman about the allegations on February 1st, 2022. He said that three to five minutes before meeting him, he notified the chairman that he was about to suspend his brother.
He said the chairman told him that, as chief executive, O’Donnell would be “very busy suspending senior managers” and identified two other senior executives he suggested would also have to be suspended.
O’Donnell said the chairman maintained he had told his brother on numerous occasions that the tractor “would be his undoing”.
He said the tractor was returned to IFI headquarters the following night, driven by a child. He said a few days later Fintan Gorman asked to meet him and told him that “calls like that make or break a CEO”.
O’Donnell said he received an unsigned letter in March 2022 which alleged he had bought a boat from the organisation and used IFI staff to have it transferred to his home. He said IFI management later confirmed he had never purchased a boat.
He said he was excluded from a private session of a board meeting in March, at which governance issues – most of which he had brought to its attention and some which predated his appointment – were discussed. He said he felt this was “highly irregular”.
He said details of the issues considered at the closed meeting were leaked to an individual named Dennis Moss, who was identified as an angler and journalist and a friend of Fintan and Pat Gorman. He said correspondence containing these issues was later sent to ministers and senior officials.
“This was an escalation as a result of the action I had taken. This was a way of weaponising governance matters within the organisation, making them public and pointing fingers at the CEO and some of his colleagues.”
O’Donnell said Fine Gael Senator Seán Kyne was talking openly about the allegations.
“This [the allegations] was a smokescreen to create a lot of problems for me while I was dealing with the issue of the suspension of the chairman’s brother.”
He said in April 2022 the then chairman had “threatened to make public information about me if I did not deal with the February 1st issue”.
O’Donnell said it was alleged he had removed a senior IFI executive from an interview panel for a post where Pat Gorman was a candidate.
The hearing continues.