A worker was put on administrative leave for sending a mass email to colleagues taking issue with a “shameful” lack of Irish at a State agency – adding that only “real excuses” for not learning the language were being “an anti-Irish racist” or “lazy”, a tribunal has heard.

The complainant says he was falsely accused of “racial harassment” and put on administrative leave until his contract ran out when he sent the email, ending his two and a half years on the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s communications team.

The details were aired during preliminary legal argument at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on statutory complaints by the worker, Seanán Ó Coistín, against the FSAI and staffing agency Orange Recruitment.

Mr Ó Coistín was due to finish up a fixed-term contract at the end of the month when he sent the email – addressed to over 130 colleagues – on the morning before their staff Christmas party on Wednesday 11 December 2024, the hearing was told today.

“When I leave the FSAI, there will be zero Irish language capacity – there is no-one else who is fluent and can speak it, read it and write it to an advanced level,” Mr Ó Coistín wrote.

“The sad fact is that when I am gone, there will be more Polish, Spanish, French and Italian in the FSAI than Irish. As an Irish State agency, that is shameful,” he wrote.

“My I suggest, as a New Year’s resolution, some of you liberate yourselves from any silly ideas about not being good at languages, or not having time, and learn the Irish language in 2025?” he wrote.

The only “real excuses” for not wanting to learn Irish were that a person was “an anti-Irish racist” or “lazy”, the email added.

“Yes, anti-Irish racism is real,” Mr Ó Coistín wrote. His letter then cited a news article about “some poor crank” who had placed “anti-Irish language leaflets” on parked cars in Belfast in opposition to Irish language classes at a pub.

“The good news is that racism and laziness are both things that are learned, and people can learn not to be racist or to be lazy,” the email added.

He hoped there would be no collection made to give him a leaving gift and wrote that “language richness” would be “far more valuable and longer-lasting”.

The FSAI’s barrister, Peadar Ó Maoláin BL, appearing instructed by Paul Gough of Beauchamps Solicitors, said Mr Ó Coistín’s email prompted three written complaints and an unspecified number of oral complaints from its staff.

“People objected in particular to being characterised as either an anti-Irish racist or that they were lazy,” counsel said.

Mr Ó Coistín said nothing was relayed to him by management about the email for six hours until a human resources manager went to him at 3.50pm that afternoon and told him he was being placed on “administrative leave”.

“The reason given was racial harassment, but this allegation has been tested and proven false, that it has no basis,” Mr Ó Coistín submitted.

He said he was “taken aback” to be confronted with this allegation and said it was clear to him that his email had been “misconstrued”.

“I was never told who the parties were, whom I had committed racial harassment against,” he said.

Mr Ó Coistín said it was “strange” that he was not given the opportunity to question his accusers and that he had to “put the onus on them” in the FSAI to give him information about the complaints.

In investigation process took place in January 2025, examining one allegation that Mr Ó Coistín had breached the the FSAI’s diversity and equality policy and a second allegation that he had breached its email policy, Mr Ó Maoiláin submitted.

He said Mr Ó Coistín had been “exonerated” of the alleged breach of the diversity and equality policy, but that the investigation found that he did breach the agency’s email policy.

Mr Ó Coistín said: “I have to ask, where were people’s heads, politically? Where was the political logic on this, in a State body?”

“Perhaps it’s because the Food Safety Authority is not good with the Irish language this has occurred,” he said. He added it was his belief that his line manager and the HR manager “were more interested in getting me out of the office” and “that’s why we’re here today”.

The hearing was conducted partly through Irish and partly through English by adjudication officer Breiffni O’Neill, Mr Ó Coistín having told the WRC earlier this year he would prefer an adjudicator who could speak Irish.

At today’s hearing, Mr Ó Coistín said he would withdraw complaints under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003 against both the FSAI and Orange Recruitment.

The staffing agency’s management and its representative left the hearing after being excused by Mr O’Neill.

Mr Ó Maoiláin, for the FSAI, argued two further statutory complaints raised by Mr Ó Coistín against his client under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 were statute-barred.

Although Mr Ó Coistín had lodged a complaint early in 2025 under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, he had wrongly identified the FSAI as his employer rather than Orange Recruitment, Mr Ó Maoilain submitted.

The further complaint filed by Mr Ó Coistín in July 2025 under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 fell outside the usual statutory time limit of six months from the alleged penalisation, counsel added.

Mr Ó Coistín argued he was disadvantaged by the fact that neither of these Acts were available in Irish and that this should be taken as reasonable cause for an extension of time limits.

Mr Ó Maoláin said the email of 11 December 2024, cited by Mr Ó Coistín as a protected disclosure, was evidence that the complainant was not disadvantaged by the relevant legislation being unavailable in Irish.

“It should not matter whether I have excellent English or excellent Irish; about 50% of the laws are not translated, and personnel within the State apparatus do not speak sufficient Irish,” Mr Ó Coistín said in response.

Mr O’Neill ruled today that he was “declining jurisdiction” over the Unfair Dismissals Act complaint, as it had been a term of Mr Ó Coistín’s fixed-term contract that the legislation would not apply when it expired.

He said he would reserve his position on the respondent’s application that the Protected Disclosures claim be dismissed on a preliminary basis and proceed to a full hearing of that complaint.

The case has been adjourned to the end of July.