{"id":423776,"date":"2026-04-29T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423776\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T17:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:52:41","slug":"husband-of-former-fg-td-denies-swearing-at-employee-who-accused-wife-of-bullying-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423776\/","title":{"rendered":"Husband of former FG TD denies swearing at employee who accused wife of bullying \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The husband of former Fine Gael<\/a> TD Kate O\u2019Connell<\/a> has denied swearing at an employee who accused his wife of bullying before he quit his job at one of their pharmacies two years ago. <\/p>\n

The Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) concluded its hearings on Tuesday into complaints against Rathgar Pharmacy Ltd by Marwan Al Rahbi under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Employment Equality Act 1998. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi, an Omani national, resigned in the summer of 2024 from his \u20ac112,000-a-year job as a supervising pharmacist the O\u2019Connells\u2019 company, which operates three pharmacies in south Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He has since returned to the Gulf with his family for work, the tribunal was told. <\/p>\n

A central element of the worker\u2019s case is his claim that Kate O\u2019Connell bullied him at work \u2013 and that as he could not realistically address that by approaching her husband to make a workplace grievance, he had no option other than to quit. <\/p>\n

The WRC has heard that Al Rahbi complained about Kate O\u2019Connell to her husband after she pulled the complainant up on using his mobile phone at work in April 2024. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi\u2019s evidence was that he was on his phone that day because he was dealing with a sick child. Kate O\u2019Connell, he said, was \u201cvery rude\u201d to him on that occasion. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am a pharmacist, a respected professional, how should I react?\u201d he said. His case was that he told Kate O\u2019Connell she should speak to him \u201cprofessionally\u201d. <\/p>\n

The employer\u2019s stance was that it had a strict no-phones policy \u2013 while Al Rahbi said in evidence that pharmacists were permitted to use their personal devices and that all staff used them at work.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s position was that Al Rahbi had been \u201cso distracted\u201d on his phone he did not notice Kate O\u2019Connell arrive. <\/p>\n

Kate O\u2019Connell told the tribunal last year that Al Rahbi was \u201cinsubordinate\u201d towards her on April 15th, 2024. \u201cIt was the flying off the handle at me … it was extremely unusual for a support pharmacist to verbally attack their senior pharmacist, their boss, in front of other staff,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The complainant said he then phoned Morgan O\u2019Connell about what had happened \u2013 without realising the latter was just out of surgery in hospital after suffering a fractured collarbone, broken rib and punctured lung in a tag rugby match. <\/p>\n

Morgan O\u2019Connell said Al Rahbi phoned him \u201cshouting about Kate\u201d and he was told by a nurse to hang up the phone. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi\u2019s evidence was that on one occasion that spring, he was told to \u201cgo the f*ck back to work\u201d by Morgan O\u2019Connell while he was in hospital. <\/p>\n

Morgan O\u2019Connell denied using the f-word towards Al Rahbi. He said Al-Rahbi had phoned him again later when he was recuperating from his surgery in Kerry. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi was \u201cquite hyped up on the phone and aggressive\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said after discussing the matter, Al Rahbi asked him what to do and he said to him: \u201cGo back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t curse at staff,\u201d Morgan O\u2019Connell said. <\/p>\n

He said the business\u2019s policy was that staff were not allowed used their personal devices unless \u201cpre-cleared\u201d to do so by himself or Kate O\u2019Connell. <\/p>\n

Morgan O\u2019Connell said under cross-examination that he had warned Al Rahbi about \u201crepeated phone use in the pharmacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Morgan O\u2019Connell said that in a subsequent interaction with Al Rahbi, the complainant had \u201cagreed that I would give him instruction\u201d but \u201cwouldn\u2019t accept instruction\u201d from other senior staff at the pharmacy group, including his wife. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was saying: \u2018Why can\u2019t you say Kate is your boss?\u2019,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The complainant said Morgan O\u2019Connell was \u201cshaking\u201d and \u201cscreaming\u201d at him, quoting him as saying: \u201cSay Kate is your boss\u201d.<\/p>\n

The employer\u2019s position was that Al Rahbi replied: \u201cNo I will not say she is my boss,\u201d and then \u201cwent to the yard in a rage\u201d, the firm\u2019s barrister, Derek Dunne BL, submitted last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach action has an opposite reaction,\u201d Al Rahbi said when this was put to him in cross-examination earlier in the hearings. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi met with the O\u2019Connells in May 2024 off the premises, the tribunal heard. <\/p>\n

Morgan O\u2019Connell\u2019s evidence was that the grievance Mr Al Rahbi initiated against his wife was \u201cimmediately withdrawn\u201d by the complainant at that meeting. <\/p>\n

Kate O\u2019Connell\u2019s evidence was that Al Rahbi gave notice of resignation on that occasion, whileMr Al Rahbi said Morgan O\u2019Connell told him he was \u201cdismissed\u201d. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi\u2019s evidence was that Morgan O\u2019Connell told him: \u2018You are here just to listen, not to speak.\u2019<\/p>\n

He said he reached \u201cbreaking point\u201d the following month and resigned then. <\/p>\n

In a closing submission, Cillian McGovern BL, for the complainant, said it had been \u201cwell established\u201d that the O\u2019Connells did not have a clear workplace grievance process in place. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear from the evidence no one knows how a matter gets resolved, should the matter concern the owners,\u201d he said. This was \u201cmanifestly unsound\u201d, he added. <\/p>\n

Al Rahbi\u2019s mental health had been \u201cdestroyed\u201d over the course of a number of years working under the O\u2019Connells to the point he had to quit \u201cto preserve himself and his young family\u201d, McGovern said. <\/p>\n

Dunne, for the respondent, argued the tribunal was being asked to conclude that an employment relationship which had lasted two years broke down completely in the space of two months. <\/p>\n

Various allegations raised by Al Rahbi alleging bullying, shouting, religious discrimination, pressure to sign documents and issues about working hours had \u201cascended to no more than assertion\u201d during the hearings, he said. <\/p>\n

He said the only potential grievance Al Rahbi could point to was \u201cperhaps the allegation of bullying, which was never substantiated, withdrawn immediately, and never pursued further\u201d, counsel said. <\/p>\n

Adjudicator Andrew Heavey then concluded the hearing. <\/p>\n

McGovern was instructed by Crushell & Co Solicitors in the matter. Dunne appeared with Kelly Hoban Solicitors. The adjudication in the case will be given at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The husband of former Fine Gael TD Kate O\u2019Connell has denied swearing at an employee who accused his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,3775,61,60,185535,1962,6465],"class_list":["post-423776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-fine-gael","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kate-oconnell","tag-work","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423776","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=423776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}