A worker at a pharma firm sacked after getting into a fistfight with a takeaway driver in a row over a late order has won his job back, having spent 15 months out of work.<\/p>\n
The fracas broke out outside the premises of Almac Pharma Services Ltd in Dundalk in March 2025, when staff refused a food delivery because their break was finished, the Workplace Relations Commission heard.<\/p>\n
The driver threw the first punch after demanding the sacked worker repeat the remark, the tribunal was told.<\/p>\n
The employment tribunal has now ordered Almac Pharma Services Ireland to re-employ production operator Stephen Loughran within the next fortnight, after ruling his sacking last year unfair.<\/p>\n
The decision, on foot of a complaint by Mr Lougrhan under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, was published by the WRC this morning, following hearings earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Mr Loughran said a colleague had ordered food for around 10 workers on the Friday evening shift at the company’s facility in Dundalk on 7 March, 2025.<\/p>\n
The order was meant to arrive in time for the workers’ scheduled break, but as it was 40 minutes late, the workers could not accept the delivery, Mr Loughran said.<\/p>\n
He said the driver got “aggressive” when he and his colleagues tried to tell him this.<\/p>\n
Mr Loughran said he then turned to walk away, and called the driver a “c**t”.<\/p>\n
The driver asked him to repeat the remark, and he did so – upon which the driver punched him, Mr Loughran said.<\/p>\n
He said he then grappled with the driver and punched him back. The WRC noted on review of the CCTV that there was “arm-holding, pushing and a couple of punches thrown by the complainant”.<\/p>\n
Mr Loughran then went out to the driver’s car and asked him to wait for garda\u00ed to attend, but the man “drove off regardless”, he said.<\/p>\n
The complainant, who represented himself at a hearing in June, said he was still unemployed 15 months after being sacked on the stated basis of gross misconduct on 7 April 2025.<\/p>\n
Michelle McGinley of the Employers’ Federation of Northern Ireland, appearing for the respondent, argued Mr Loughran “inserted himself” into the situation and escalated matters by using offensive language towards the driver.<\/p>\n
She argued Mr Loughran “responded with a number of punches while the driver was retreating and attempting to protect himself”.<\/p>\n
“This went well beyond self-defence,” Ms McGinley argued.<\/p>\n
This was the view of the company disciplinary panel when it decided Mr Loughran had committed gross misconduct warranting summary dismissal, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n
In his decision published today, adjudicator Breiffni O\u2019Neill disagreed and upheld Mr Loughran’s complaint, ruling the dismissal unfair on both procedural and substantive grounds.<\/p>\n
He wrote that having watched CCTV footage of the incident, his view was that the disciplinary panel was wrong to suggest Mr Loughran “could have walked away” when the driver “briefly backed away” after the first punch.<\/p>\n
The CCTV showed there was no “clear pause in the confrontation” – rather it was a “single, continuous and fast-moving exchange lasting approximately six seconds”, Mr O\u2019Neill wrote.<\/p>\n
“Treating that brief movement as a meaningful opportunity to disengage requires a level of reflection and decision-making that is not realistically available to someone who has just been punched and is still in the middle of an unfolding physical altercation,” Mr O\u2019Neill wrote.<\/p>\n
The adjudicator was critical of the “concentration of functions” in the site manager, Sean Canavan, whom he called “the architect” of the disciplinary process from beginning to end.<\/p>\n
The site manager was “not merely in contact with the investigation but was, on my findings, its author, its evidence-gatherer, its instructing party, and its ultimate decision-maker, all in one”, Mr O’Neill wrote.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Neill had further concerns with the expansion of the disciplinary charges against Mr Loughran between the investigation stage and the disciplinary meeting; the failure to investigate inconsistencies in witness statements, and the “re-investigation” of allegations during the disciplinary meeting by Mr Canavan.<\/p>\n
He was also concerned about a finding by Miriam Wilkin, the company’s assigned appeals officer, who found Mr Loughran “had pursued the driver around his vehicle” – a finding the disciplinary panel had not made at all, Mr O\u2019Neill noted.<\/p>\n
These five “more serious defects” in the disciplinary process, taken together, deprived Mr Loughran of the “independent and even-handed” process” he was due, Mr O\u2019Neill wrote.<\/p>\n
In setting redress, Mr O’Neill noted Mr Loughran had told him he wanted to go back to his former post.<\/p>\n
Mr Canavan had objected strongly to this, but there was no evidence of any breakdown in relations between the claimant and his immediate colleagues on the factory floor, the adjudicator added.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Neill wrote that he would not award full reinstatement with back pay for the 15 months Mr Loughran was jobless, as the worker had committed “serious misconduct”.<\/p>\n
He directed the firm to re-engage Mr Loughran as a production operator or in an equivalent post starting from the week after next, and to treat the period since his dismissal as unpaid suspension.<\/p>\n
“The complainant has paid a huge price for conduct that was of his own making, and I am satisfied that the time has now come for that price to be brought to an end,” Mr O’Neill added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A worker at a pharma firm sacked after getting into a fistfight with a takeaway driver in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-583001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583001","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=583001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}