{"id":537840,"date":"2026-07-07T17:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537840\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T17:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:52:12","slug":"unfair-dismissal-case-of-former-inland-fisheries-ireland-chief-adjourned-until-september-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537840\/","title":{"rendered":"Unfair dismissal case of former Inland Fisheries Ireland chief adjourned until September \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a belief in Inland Fisheries Ireland<\/a> (IFI) that Francis O\u2019Donnell had a substantive role as a director in the agency to which he could return after he finished his term as its chief executive, an employment tribunal has heard.<\/p>\n

IFI human resources specialist Pauline McNulty told the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) that the issue emerged as part of an internal report on contingent liability for the agency. <\/p>\n

The report looked at staff on fixed-term or special-purpose contracts who could potentially have an entitlement to redundancy payments.<\/p>\n

McNulty said there was a discussion among a number of senior IFI human resources personnel at which it was noted that O\u2019Donnell\u2019s substantive position was as a regional director \u2013 a role he held before being appointed chief executive in 2020.<\/p>\n

She was called as a witness on Tuesday on behalf of O\u2019Donnell, who claims in his WRC case that he was unfairly dismissed by IFI and was penalised after making protected disclosures under whistleblower legislation.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Inland Fisheries Ireland chief executive had suicidal thoughts, doctor tells tribunalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The WRC has heard that IFI terminated O\u2019Donnell\u2019s position as chief executive in June 2025 but paid up his contract until its expiry date last November. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell has claimed he was entitled to return to his substantive post as a regional director in IFI. The State fisheries agency disputes this assertion. <\/p>\n

Cross-examining McNulty at a hearing on Tuesday, IFI\u2019s counsel Tiernan Lowey said an examination of quarterly headcount reports drawn up by the agency contained no reference to a post being held open for O\u2019Donnell. <\/p>\n

He said the regional director position previously held by O\u2019Donnell was subsequently split into two posts, both of which were filled.<\/p>\n

McNulty said she was not surprised at this as it would not be practical for the agency to keep open a post for five or possibly 10 years if the chief executive was appointed to two terms. <\/p>\n

She said such posts would generally be filled and when a person was seeking to return to a substantive post, the agency would use a post that was vacant at the time as long as sufficient funding was available. <\/p>\n

She said the Department of the Environment<\/a>, the parent department for IFI, set an annual headcount ceiling that could not be breached.<\/p>\n

The WRC hearing has now adjourned until mid-September, when former IFI chairwoman Frances Lucey is scheduled to give evidence on behalf of O\u2019Donnell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a belief in Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) that Francis O\u2019Donnell had a substantive role as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27797,61,10914,60,43,6465],"class_list":["post-537840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-department-of-the-environment-climate-and-communications","tag-ie","tag-inland-fisheries-ireland","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537840","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=537840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}