{"id":349835,"date":"2026-03-17T00:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/349835\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:08:10","slug":"workplace-relations-commission-upholds-sacking-of-cocky-printer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/349835\/","title":{"rendered":"Workplace Relations Commission upholds sacking of \u2018cocky\u2019 printer \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A printer who claimed he was put out of a job because he was plotted against after he called for a colleague\u2019s sacking over alleged \u201cpoor performance\u201d and a \u201cghetto attitude\u201d on the shop floor has lost a claim for unfair dismissal at the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC).<\/p>\n

An employment tribunal found that a lack of \u201chumility\u201d on the part of the printer, Declan Walshe, contributed to \u201centirely dysfunctional\u201d relations with his colleagues and manager at a Dublin printworks as it rejected his complaint against the operator, Poolville Ltd, trading as Labelcraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I come off as cocky, it\u2019s only because I know what I\u2019m doing. I\u2019m proactive, and I don\u2019t like doing sh**ty jobs,\u201d Walshe told the WRC last year. \u201cI was over in London, believe me, the pace in London is twice as fast as here, they wouldn\u2019t tolerate the bulls**t there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walshe, a litho printer on \u20ac48,000 a year at the firm\u2019s plant in Tallaght, Dublin 24, lost his job after bosses decided he had made a \u201cfalse allegation\u201d in front of other staff in the works canteen on September 3rd, 2024, alleging his manager had gone through his bag. <\/p>\n

There was a dispute over the exact wording of the remark. Walshe said he had said the manager \u201cmust have had a sneak peek\u201d. <\/p>\n

The company\u2019s financial controller said a remark by Walshe that \u201csomeone grassed him up and that [the manager] had gone through his bag\u201d had been recorded in agreed disciplinary meeting minutes. <\/p>\n

There was a dispute over the exact wording of the remark. Walshe said he had said the manager \u201cmust have had a sneak peek\u201d. He said that, although it would be good practice not to have food or drink in the workshop, he had a jar of home-made yoghurt drink in the bag and that [the manager] was trying to \u201caccrue points against me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Walshe had just days earlier filed a formal grievance against the site manager, accusing him of failing to manage a dispute with another printer at his workplace, Mr M, the tribunal heard \u2013 but instead found himself subject to a disciplinary inquiry. <\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Over a billion eyeballs will be on the parade\u2019: St Patrick\u2019s festival CEO Richard Tierney<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually the other employees who were plotting against me because of the fact that I was better at my job than they were,\u201d said Walshe. \u201cThere was collusion going on behind my back.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said he tried to help M learn to run new machines brought in by the firm but found his efforts \u201cthrown back in my face\u201d by his colleague, whom he described as \u201clike a petulant child with ADHD\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u2018Flat Dublin accent\u2019<\/p>\n

M \u201cwas very aggressive towards me on the factory floor\u201d, said Walshe of one interaction in late 2023. \u201cHe said, \u2018you think I know nothin\u2019\u201d, in a flat Dublin accent, and squared up to me on the factory floor\u201d, the complainant added. <\/p>\n

Adjudicator Catherine Byrne stopped Walshe at one point when he made a further reference to M\u2019s Dublin accent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from Dublin,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Walshe said it was \u201crelevant to someone squaring up to you in a ghetto-type manner\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it offensive,\u201d said Byrne.<\/p>\n

Cross-examining Walshe, counsel for the employer Frank Drumm asked him: \u201cYou felt there was a conspiracy against you, they\u2019re all ganging up on you … When did you first begin to feel that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Walshe said he had \u201ca pretty big argument\u201d with M in the spring of 2024, and that shortly after that, the roster was changed so that he and M\u2019s shifts would not cross over. He regarded this as unsatisfactory. <\/p>\n

\u201cI recommended [M\u2019s] dismissal,\u201d said the claimant. <\/p>\n

\u2018Ghetto\u2019<\/p>\n

Walshe\u2019s evidence was M had \u201cgot the job\u201d through a supervisor at the site \u201cbecause he\u2019s from Clondalkin as well\u201d. M also had a \u201cconfidant\u201d \u2013 another long-serving printer from Clondalkin with whom he would get lifts to work from time to time, said Walshe. <\/p>\n

\u201cWas there a particular problem with being from Clondalkin?\u201d asked Drumm. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but if you\u2019re going to come with a ghetto attitude and square up to me, I\u2019m not taking it,\u201d replied Walshe. \u201cHe\u2019s talking to me as if he\u2019s from the ghetto and he\u2019s going to do something to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added there were \u201cgood people from Clondalkin\u201d and referred to a previous job at a print plant in East Wall working with colleagues \u201cfrom the toughest part of Sheriff Street\u201d who were \u201cworking hard\u201d to get away from criminality in their communities. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I come off as cocky, it\u2019s only because I know what I\u2019m doing. I\u2019m proactive and I don\u2019t like doing sh**ty jobs,\u201d said Walshe. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was over in London, believe me, the pace in London is twice as fast as here, they wouldn\u2019t tolerate the bulls**t there. I\u2019m not going to be apologetic about that. I know what I\u2019m doing and keep myself fit, so I outperform them,\u201d said Walshe. <\/p>\n

In her decision, the adjudicator decided that Walshe had an \u201centirely dysfunctional\u201d relationship with his manager and colleagues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis dysfunction was caused by him, due to his failure to behave in a supportive manner and to manage the relationships in his workplace constructively and with a degree of humility,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n

She said it was \u201cunusual\u201d for a worker to go to management to call for a colleague\u2019s sacking. \u201cMost people manage their colleagues\u2019 deficits by supporting or ignoring them,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n

Walshe\u2019s remark about his manager in the canteen was \u201cthe last straw\u201d for the company, she decided. <\/p>\n

She dismissed Walshe\u2019s challenge to his dismissal and wrote: \u201cAny reasonable employer would have done the same thing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A printer who claimed he was put out of a job because he was plotted against after he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-349835","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\/349835","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=349835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}