{"id":23376,"date":"2025-09-15T19:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T19:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/23376\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T19:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T19:12:08","slug":"rte-presenter-tells-tribunal-he-heard-manager-direct-supervisor-not-to-give-shift-work-to-editor-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/23376\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 presenter tells tribunal he heard manager direct supervisor not to give shift work to editor \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broadcaster Colm \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in<\/a> has told a tribunal he overheard an RT\u00c9<\/a> manager direct a supervisor not to give shift work to a video editor after she made a formal request for more secure working conditions.<\/p>\n

The journalist was giving evidence today on a series of employment rights complaints brought by his colleague Maebh Keary di Lucia \u2013 who claims RT\u00c9 has left her short by nearly \u20ac360,000 because she was \u201cmisclassified\u201d as a contractor at the start of her career at the national broadcaster. <\/p>\n

Ms Keary di Lucia told the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) on Monday that she stopped pushing for more job security after Mr \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in came to her and told her what he had overheard in 2008. <\/p>\n

She is seeking just short of \u20ac360,000 in multiple employment rights claims against the State broadcaster under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and the Terms of Employment Information Act 1994. <\/p>\n

She claims she was denied pay-related statutory entitlements and annual leave between 2004 to 2011, when she was working shifts as a newsroom video editor while \u201cmisclassified\u201d as an independent contractor. <\/p>\n

She has further alleged that because her contract of employment \u201cincorrectly\u201d states that she started work there in 2011, her service is not recognised, her advancement on the pay scale for her grade was delayed, and she has been denied a long-service allowance since summer 2024. <\/p>\n

RT\u00c9\u2019s lawyers say the WRC has no jurisdiction to rule on the case due to time limits in the Workplace Relations Act.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 pays out \u20ac4m tied to misclassification of some staff as self-employedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

At a hearing on Monday, Mr \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in said he worked regularly with Ms Keary di Lucia in 2008, as both had been involved in the production of RT\u00c9\u2019s current affairs programme for children News2Day and other projects. <\/p>\n

He told the commission that in May 2008 he overheard a conversation in the corridor of the RT\u00c9 newsroom between a manager in charge of camera operators and video editors, and a senior video editor in the department who was responsible for rostering. <\/p>\n

\u201cI heard [the manager] tell [the senior editor] that he should only use Maebh as a last resort until this thing had blown over. I was surprised by that because Maebh was very much a go-to video editor,\u201d Mr \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in said. <\/p>\n

He said he thought it unusual that Ms di Lucia would not be assigned \u201cplenty of shifts\u201d and decided to inform her. <\/p>\n

He said Ms di Lucia and her Siptu<\/a> trade union representative, Ruth Delaney, then asked him to make a note of what he had overheard and to give evidence if he was asked to, and he agreed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was never ultimately called to anything until today and I suppose my original commitment that I would be happy to stand over that remains today so that\u2019s why I\u2019m here today,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember what reaction I had?\u201d Ms di Lucia asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I remember you were upset and disturbed by it. It seemed to be something you found stressful. When I say upset, a combination of upset and annoyed would be how I\u2019d judge your reaction,\u201d Mr \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in said. <\/p>\n

Asked by RT\u00c9\u2019s solicitor, Louise O\u2019Byrne of Arthur Cox<\/a>, what he knew of Ms di Lucia\u2019s complaint to the WRC, Mr \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in said he was \u201cnot familiar with the detail\u201d of the dispute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be conscious that she\u2019s raised issues around contracts and what\u2019s broadly known as bogus self-employment at public meetings at RT\u00c9 and when it\u2019s come for discussion at management forums but I\u2019m not across the details of her case,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The complainant told the tribunal that she had written formally to her manager making a request for \u201cmore secure working conditions\u201d in February 2007. <\/p>\n

The matter was referred to the Labour Relations Commission in 2008, she said. \u201cThey said it wasn\u2019t in their jurisdiction, and they took a sidestep,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Asked by adjudicator Christina Ryan whether she had made further requests about her working conditions, Ms Keary di Lucia said: \u201cI didn\u2019t, because of the evidence Colm \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in gave. I became very stressed and my hair began to fall out. I felt I could not pursue the issue,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The dispute follows determinations by the Department of Social Protection\u2019s scope section, the Social Welfare Appeals Office and the Revenue Commissioners that despite being paid via invoice, Ms Keary di Lucia had been an employee prior to receiving a contract of employment in 2011. <\/p>\n

Ms Keary di Lucia said that in response to \u201cconsistent findings\u201d of \u201cmisclassification\u201d, RT\u00c9 had \u201csolely paid PRSI\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve paid the State, but they have not repaid me,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Ms Keary di Lucia has argued that she is being denied her rights under European Union directives requiring the WRC to set the time limits aside, and that she is suffering ongoing rights breaches due to the statement in her contract of employment giving her a 2011 start date. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broadcaster Colm \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in has told a tribunal he overheard an RT\u00c9 manager direct a supervisor not to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[14231,20166,61,60,6085,20167,112,6465],"class_list":{"0":"post-23376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-arthur-cox","9":"tag-colm-o-mongain","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-rte","13":"tag-siptu","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}