{"id":399799,"date":"2026-04-15T13:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399799\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T13:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:39:12","slug":"company-law-enforcer-spends-e334000-on-employment-case-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399799\/","title":{"rendered":"Company law enforcer spends \u20ac334,000 on employment case \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A case taken by an employee against the State\u2019s Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA)<\/a> has cost the organisation almost \u20ac334,000, correspondence with a D\u00e1il committee shows.<\/p>\n

The CEA ensures businesses comply with company law and enforces the legislation in the Republic\u2019s civil and criminal courts.<\/p>\n

The agency has spent \u20ac333,851 on Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) proceedings taken by an employee last year, says a letter from CEA chairman Ian Drennan to the D\u00e1il Committee of Public Accounts.<\/p>\n

Lawyers involved in the case earned a total of \u20ac275,226, with \u20ac190,236 of this going to solicitors, \u20ac55,043 to senior counsel and \u20ac30,147 to a barrister, the letter states.<\/p>\n

An internal investigation and appeal cost \u20ac58,425, the correspondence shows.<\/p>\n

Drennan notes that the agency and staff member have since agreed a settlement.<\/p>\n

However, the departments of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, and Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, had yet to approve that deal when Drennan wrote the letter on March 26th.<\/p>\n

The case was still before the WRC at that time, although it had been adjourned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt follows, therefore, that at this time, the CEA has not incurred any settlement costs,\u201d notes Drennan.<\/p>\n

If the Government does not approve the settlement, the hearing will go ahead at the WRC, he adds.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cBack yourself\u201d: Aimee Connolly shares her story of 10 years in business<\/p>\n

Drennan states that the CEA had applied to have it heard in private and asks that the Committee of Public Accounts not publish the letter.<\/p>\n

The agency did not respond to a request for comment and so did not confirm if the two Government departments had approved the settlement.<\/p>\n

Drennan wrote in response to queries raised by TDs when the Committee of Public Accounts discussed the case briefly during a hearing in January, where politicians scrutinised the CEA\u2019s accounts.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats TD Aidan Farrelly said \u20ac348,000 of approximately \u20ac1 million in legal costs over two years stemmed from \u201cnon-enforcement\u201d activity.<\/p>\n

Drennan told him that the WRC proceedings accounted for a \u201csignificant portion\u201d of that total.<\/p>\n

The agency hired counsel in 2025 while the fees paid \u201cwere certainly front-loaded\u201d, he confirmed.<\/p>\n

The chairman stressed that the WRC case was the first of its nature taken against the agency since its foundation in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are in front of the WRC for the first time in 20-odd years, we take that very seriously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CEA was unable to go into greater detail about the case, Drennan pointed out, noting that this was evidence of how seriously the agency took the issue.<\/p>\n

Farrelly also raised the issue of the number of garda\u00ed working for the agency, which requires support from the force for criminal investigations and prosecutions.<\/p>\n

A review of the CEA recommended that it have 16 members of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na on its staff, while the TD pointed out that the actual number was seven.<\/p>\n

Drennan responded that newspaper reports of tension over this were \u201coverblown\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told Farrelly that the CEA was waiting for several members of the force to be deployed to the agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A case taken by an employee against the State\u2019s Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) has cost the organisation almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,104960,61,60,12467,6465],"class_list":["post-399799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-corporate-enforcement-authority","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399799","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=399799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}