A construction company chief executive has won more than \u20ac180,000 after he was fired by its shareholders when he objected to millions of euro being paid to a director at a time when subcontractors had downed tools over unpaid bills. <\/p>\n
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found that Derrin Group Management Ltd had failed to present evidence of \u201cany grounds\u201d to justify the dismissal of Conor Gilligan, whose conduct, the adjudicator said, was \u201cbeyond reproach\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gilligan <\/p>\n
was dismissed without contractual notice from his \u20ac200,000-a-year job as chief executive of the Co Kildare-based firm at a shareholders\u2019 meeting in November 2024, the tribunal heard. <\/p>\n
He told the WRC he had been appointed CEO of the business, 50 per cent of which was owned by Teamport Ltd, in 2022.<\/p>\n
Teamport became Derrin\u2019s \u201cprimary shareholder\u201d and advanced \u20ac15 million in loans, he said. Its directors were also board members at Derrin Group Management Ltd. <\/p>\n
Although all Derrin\u2019s ongoing projects were \u201cprofitable\u201d, Mr Gilligan said, there were \u201cperiodic cash flow issues\u201d from 2022 to 2024 which became a \u201cconsiderable concern\u201d in 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cSubcontractors were not being paid or preferred for payment, which resulted in them downing tools,\u201d he told the WRC. This caused delays and reduced profits, he said. <\/p>\n
When he discovered that sums of \u20ac1 million and \u20ac2.3 million had been paid to Teamport Ltd \u2013 and later that the payments were being made to the \u201cpersonal account\u201d of one of Teamport\u2019s directors \u2013 he directed Derrin\u2019s chief financial officer to stop making payments to that director and to prioritise paying construction-related creditors \u201cover all other expenditure\u201d, a move that was agreed at a board meeting on September 11th 2024, he said. <\/p>\n
The director who had received the payments wrote an email to Gilligan five days later complaining that other creditors were being paid ahead of him, the tribunal heard. <\/p>\n
After telling the director he had an obligation to pay the suppliers, the director replied the money was his and he would do with it as he wished, Gilligan said. <\/p>\n
Gilligan said he had a further concern about the \u201cdelayed or non-payment of VAT arising from house sales\u201d amounting to \u20ac2.6 million. This was on top of a \u20ac3.6 million \u201clegacy\u201d VAT debt due to the Revenue Commissioners, he said. <\/p>\n
When he called for a board meeting on this, the director refused to allow it, he said. After he put his concerns about the VAT bills in writing, an extraordinary general meeting was called in October 2024 on a motion for his removal as CEO. <\/p>\n
On the day of the EGM, November 8th, 2024, Gilligan recused himself. The shareholders voted to dismiss him without notice for gross misconduct. <\/p>\n
The CEO said he had no opportunity to respond to charges of \u201cfinancial mismanagement\u201d of one site, doubling the cost projection of a project to build a creche on another site that he owned and \u201cdeliberately and consistently misleading the board\u201d at any time before his case was heard at the WRC. <\/p>\n
He told the hearing they were \u201cabsurd\u201d and \u201ccompletely unfounded\u201d. <\/p>\n
Derrin chief operations officer, Pat McCarthy, said that it was the three Teamport directors who decided to dismiss Mr Gilligan. <\/p>\n
Those three directors did not attend either of two WRC hearings in December 2025 or February 2026 with company lawyers saying they were all dealing with \u201cpersonal or family-related health matters\u201d on those dates. <\/p>\n
The tribunal noted no medical evidence was furnished. <\/p>\n
Adjudication officer Br\u00edd Deering found that the company had failed to present evidence of \u201cany grounds, let alone substantial grounds, to justify the dismissal\u201d and ruled the dismissal unfair. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am satisfied\u2026 that the complainant\u2019s conduct was beyond reproach,\u201d she added, rejecting the firm\u2019s stance that Gilligan contributed to the dismissal. <\/p>\n
She awarded Gilligan \u20ac125,581.94 \u2013 just under three-fifths of which was for his future losses in his new job \u2013 for the unfair dismissal. She awarded him a further \u20ac57,844.28 for six months\u2019 contractual notice which went unpaid on termination. <\/p>\n
In all, the company has been directed to pay Gilligan \u20ac183,426.28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A construction company chief executive has won more than \u20ac180,000 after he was fired by its shareholders when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-341030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341030","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=341030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}